Sands of Time
by Ragewaar
Summary: A new age is on the horizon, and only the Ravens unafraid to face it head-on will live to see it through. (Rated R for language, violence, and a small amount of sexual content.)
1. Arc 1: Introductions

A single eye squinted through the sight to the huge cannon. The huge cannon was pointed directly at a standard MT. There was no doubt that the MT wouldn't survive an impact from the massive weapon. _Ok. I only get one shot before this thing finds me. I can't mess this up no matter what. Or else I'm screwed. _The AC's finger hovered over the trigger, hesitated for a second, then caressed it gently.

The huge gun let out a mighty bellow and cone of blue light leapt from the end, consuming the MT and incinerating it before it even had a chance to move. The pilot of the AC let out a huge sigh of relief, and sank back in the chair of the cockpit.

"Battle over, system disengaged." _Well, so much for that. Now to get back to the base. _The pilot waited for the transport to arrive, as the AC was unable to move for long distances with the huge weapon gripped firmly in its hands. A beep interrupted the pilot from his ruminations.

_Hmmm? A message... from Kisaragi. _After tapping out a series of commands, the pilot read through the message. _Yeah... they damn well better pay me good for handling that monster._ The pilot thought angrily as the message extolled his abilities and promised him a huge check.

_Well, I'll be damned. I didn't expect them to pay THAT much. Must be an important weapon. _The pilot brooded for a few minutes, then punched a series of keys. _Well, let's see... This thing is called the KWG-STARSLAYER. Insane weight, insane damage, but only 10 ammo. I wonder why they think they can sell this thing. I don't know of any AC that can carry it, except for maybe a tank. _The pilot's train of thought paused for a moment as he thought about just how heavy the weapon was. _Maybe._

The roar of a loud engine interrupted his thoughts. The transport plane descended in front of his AC, and he lifted the rifle with a groan of exheration, staggering forward a few steps and letting it drop into the plane's holding bay with a loud crash.

"Careful you idiot! You might damage something!" The pilot grimaced as a female voice blazed over the comm, some emotion actually coming through despite the deadening quality of the transmissions.

"Shut up. I'd like to see you even** lift **this thing." The pilot ran a hand through his orange hair, and glared at the speaker with his lime green eyes. The female voice spluttered for a few seconds, then settled into indignant silence. "Yeah. That's what I thought." The AC staggered into the bay, shoving the rifle aside to make room for itself. The doors closed behind it and the plane took off with another roar of the engines.

----------------------

Inside the bay, the head of the AC popped up, then fell back, allowing some orange hair to emerge, followed by the rest of the pilot. The pilot happened to be a young man, with a clean-shaven face. Most of his body was hidden by a heavy combat vest, with large shoulder pads that protruded outwards. A thick plate protected his chest and back from harm, as well as insulating him from the elements. The pants he wore were equally heavy. Thick cloth and heavy metal plating covered his legs, and a light skirt of armor descended down to mid-thigh. Heavy combat boots rounded out the outfit.

Although the bulky armor completley covered his body, it could be surmised that he was extremley strong due to the fact that he could wear it and still move. He proved the latter by hopping off the core and onto a staricase next to the AC. Waiting for him was a woman who would be considered strikingly attractive by most men.

"Well, well. The hero returns in triumph." The woman was the first to speak, angrily tossing her mane of firey red hair behind her shoulder.

"Damn right he does. And let me tell you, that was no easy triumph." Following his angry retort with a huff, the pilot looked his female compainon up and down.

She was still in her work clothes. Due to the hazards of working on an AC, the clothes fit snugly to her body to prevent lose cloth from snagging on various parts of the machinery. There were some pads over the arms, legs, and chest of the outfit to keep her body safe from harm. The tight fit of the clothing revealed her moderately sized breasts, as well as the rest of her trim physique.

"Looks like you've been working on Gorgon."

"Yeah." The woman sniffed again, then gave the pilot a disdainful glance. As he was stared at, the man suddenly seemed to realize something.

"Damn, this thing is HOT." He pulled off the bulky armored vest, tucking it under his arm, then pulled off his shirt, revealing his well-muscled chest, which was shiny with sweat. The woman stared at him in disbelief, her gaze shifting between his body and the clothes he had just removed. "Stop staring Faye. It's not like you haven't seen me without a shirt on before."

The woman, Faye, stepped up to the man, and slapped him across the face as hard as she could. "You pig!" She snarled, anger causing her to blush. "If you're going to undress, do it somewhere else!"

"Woah, woah. Cool down there. I didn't realize it was that time of the month." The pilot was rewarded with another slap, this one even harder than the first. _Oh boy... I'm going to feel that in the morning. _Wisely keeping his thoughts to himself, he turned around and walked away, rubbing his cheek absentmindedly.

_He looks pretty good... _Faye thought with a blush, then quickly shook herself out of it. _What am I thinking? He's just a pervert._

----------------------

In the cafeteria, a blue haired woman sat eating a toasted slice of bread with thick, pink-colored ooze on it. A cup of yellow liquid sat next to her, half-empty. Despite her best efforts to keep an impassive face, the fact that the food tasted horrible could be clearly seen in the way her eyes twitched every time she took a bite.

"Same old shit huh?" The pilot sauntered into the room and grabbed a slice of bread for himself, then a tube that was labeled 'SYNTHETIC FOOD'. Wrapping his fist around the tube, he squeezed it as hard as he could, a gout of pink goo erupting onto the toast. "Well, at least it's gooey this time. It's really nasty when it dries out." Holding a cup to a fountain, the pilot pressed a button with a free finger, and filled the cup up with the same yellow liquid that the woman was drinking currently, another expression of distaste finding its way to her face. The pilot sat down across from her, raised the glass and said "Cheers." Sarcasticaly before drinking half of it in one gulp. His eyes suddenly glazed over, and his head drooped down to the table. "Damn, that stuff's nasty. What flavor is it?"

"Beer and Lemonade."

"Must be stale beer. Or stagnant lemonade." The orange-haired pilot looked up to find the woman's piercing brown eyes staring into his own. "What? The rest of us don't have your eternal optomism Kenja."

Kenja smiled, and the other pilot couldnt help but smile back. "Well..." she began, "The food will get better, just like everything else. Don't worry about it Sander."

"It's LY-Sander." The first pilot, now known as Lysander, sighed and propped his head up with his arm. "How many times do I have to tell you two that?" He took a bite of the toast, and his only reaction to the horrible taste of the ooze was to sigh. "What flavor is THIS? Oranges, beef gravy and stale bread?"

"Correct."

"Damn, I'm good." Lysander paused in mid-chew, then took a look at the bread, with the pink 'SYNTHETIC FOOD' on top of it. "There's something I don't get though. If it's orange, beef gravy and stale bread flavored, why the hell is it pink?"

"I don't know, maybe they genetically mutated it." Kenja rolled her eyes and stood up, getting another cup of the 'stale beer and lemonade'.

"Great. Just what I need, to be eating mutated food. Wait a second--" Lysander looked up and glared at Kenja, who was giggling behind her hand like a schoolgirl. "Very funny. You knew I would believe that didn't you?"

The blue haired woman smiled radiantly before walking over to him and draping herself across his shoulders. Lysander was unable to supress a blush as her ample breasts pressed into his back. He quickly put down his toast and covered his face with his hands, the orange, beef gravy and stale bread taste long forgotten. "Oh come on Sander..." Kenja purred as she ran her hands up his arms and pulled his self-imposed mask away from his face, giving his cheek a gentle caress after his hands were gone. "You know you like it..."

As luck would have it, a certain redhead was feeling rather hungry at the moment, and had also made her way to the cafeteria.

Kenja and Lysander were shocked out of their entranced states by an equally shocked gasp. Lysander looked over to see Faye framed by the doorway, her face ghost-white and her eyes like saucer plates. _Oh shit. Anyone but her. _The orange haired pilot's head quickly drooped, but Kenja pulled it back up again and started rubbing her hand up and down his cheek. "Sorry. But he's mine... right Sander?" She cooed into his ear, and nibbled on his earlobe as she smiled coyly at the other woman.

_Danger danger Lysander, danger danger!_

_Oh man. I can't believe this is happening AGAIN. Well, there are two ways to deal with this deathtrap. One is to say that I'm not hers. But then she'll slap me, and say how much her feelings have been hurt... and the other one will yell at me for hurting her friend's feelings and probably slap me as well. Two is to say that I'm hers. Then the other will look at the both of us, say "You...." and slink away, then they'll start fighting again. Well, I suppose I could "be a man" and have them both yell at me... but... _Lysander quickly reflected back on just how hard Faye could slap, and decided that he didn't want her hands anywhere near her face. _Yeah. I'll go for two._

"Yep." Lysander pasted a goofy grin all over his face as he nuzzled Kenja's arm. "I'm allllll hers..."

"Youuu..." Faye's eyes quickly melted into a death glare. She pointed at Kenja, her arm trembling visibly. "I'll get you for this!" The redhead spun quicky on her heel and stomped away, her hunger forgotten as she fought down the tears.

"My... she's certainly a testy one today." Kenja was still welded to Lysander's back, and she'd even slipped her leg around his stomach.

"Look... Kenja..." Lysander rubbed his head, quickly continuing as he felt her lick the back of his neck. "I appreciate the uh... advance... but... uh..." His voice faltered again as she licked his neck a second time. "Look... I have things I need to do..." He sighed as Kenja's hands found their way under his shirt. "Please Kenja, not now. There are still things I need to do."

Kenja sighed heavily. "It's fine."

"Sorry. But you know the situation I'm in."

She sighed again. "Yeah, that happened to me once in high school... not a pleasant situation." The pair untangled themselves and Lysander got up, falling to his knees. "Hey, are you ok?"

"Yeah, my legs just fell asleep. This isn't going to feel good when the blood starts coming back into them."

----------------------

Lysander managed to make it to his room, despite the pins and needles feeling in both of his legs. With a tremendous sigh of relief, he sat down in front of his computer. _Let's see... time to check for messages! Hey, one from Kisaragi._ Quickly typing over the keyboard, he opened up the message and read it.

As he read, his expression quickly went from hopeful to neutral, then from neutral to downcast. And as he read the final line of the message, he couldn't help but make some sort of cry of disappointment.

"Ah jeez!"

"What happened this time? Did something get caught in your zipper again?"

Lysander winced. "That was a cheap shot Faye." She simply smiled at him as he continued "Actually, Kisaragi isn't paying me for that last mission." The smile was quickly wiped off the redhead's face.

"What!? Then what ARE they paying you with!?" Lysander pointed into the bay, where the massive STARSLAYER laser rifle lay on its side.

"That useless thing!?"

"Sorry. I didn't think it would happen this way. I thought they'd actually pay me. They said the mission paid well too." Lysander sighed and his head drooped, fully expecting to be slapped at any moment. After bracing for the attack that didn't come, he looked up to find his female companion smiling at him. _If she's smiling... that can only mean..._

"You'll always be my idiot Lysander." She sighed somewhat wistfully, then kissed him deeply on the lips. Lysander's eyes went wide, but he did what came naturally to him. He kissed back.

Finally they separated, Faye with a coy smile, and Lysander with a thoughtful look on his face. "I don't get you. First you're ready to kill me, then you kiss me." His only reply was a wink, and the peace sign, as Faye slipped out the door and resumed course to her original destination. The bathroom.

The orange haired pilot sighed and walked over to the phone. He picked up the receiver, and stared at it for a few seconds.

_I just don't understand those two sometimes._


	2. Arc 1: The Gang

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Armored Core games, but I can keep praying now can't I? I also don't own Sophie, Kal, Eddy or Dylan, they all belong to FIAOblivion. This chapter was done with his full support and blessings. Thanks for helping me with all those typos buddy

If you want to use Kal, Eddy, Sophie or Dylan, ask him, not me. (Well, you COULD ask me to ask him for you, but I would just get really mad at you and either be too "busy" to fufill your request for a while or just outright ignore it. )

However, Lysander, Kenja and Faye are MINE! ALL MINE!!! Laughs like a maniac

Anyways, let's get on with the show shall we?

* * *

Lysander stared at the phone for a moment, then punched in a series of numbers. He waited paitently as the phone rang... and rang... and rang... _I know you're there... pick up the phone._

----------------------

Eddy was sound asleep when the phone started ringing. He jumped up, yelling "I didn't do it!!" Reflexivley before crashing to the floor, his legs tangled up in the blankets. He then groaned and rolled over "Oh... just the phone."

Grinning sheepishly and looking around to make sure that nobody saw him, he quickly untangled his legs from the blankets and walked over to the phone, slapping a button on it and blurting out. "Watd' you want?" Still half-asleep.

"Eddy? Is that you?"

"We don't want any!" Eddy slapped another button, cutting off the phone connection. Only then did he recognize the voice. The formerly-sleeping man redialed the number that had been calling him.

"Hello?"

"OK Sand man, what'd you need? It better be good, 'cause I was dreaming that I was stranded on an island full of hot women."

There was a pause, then a sigh from the other end of the phone. "Well, you know, there's nothing to do around here, and the girls are getting restless again, so I was thinking that maybe we could get together tonight. You know, go to a bar and shoot some pool or something."

"A date?! How lovely!" Eddy answered sarcastically, yet excited. He paused, then continued. "Meh, might as well. The only exciting thing here is when Kal and Sophie start bitching at each other."

"Well, I was thinking that Kal and Dylan could come too, and we could let the girls have some time to themselves."

"Right... I'll tell them you called, at 4 in the morning, to ask that. And set up cameras everywhere. This time we might get lucky when the girls are together." Eddy mumbled back, still half-asleep.

"Huh? It's 4 in the morning?!" There was a short pause. "Oh shit!! Ohmygodimsosorry!"

"Either my hearing's going out, or you just said a whole sentence in one word."

There was a laugh from the phone. "You never change, do you Eddy?"

"I wouldn't know. Have I changed?"

A louder laugh answered him. "Not a bit Eddy, not a bit. So, we may as well wrap this up so you can get back to your island. Are we on for tonight or what?"

"As far as I know. I'm going back to bed." Eddy pressed the 'talk' button again, and the phone was disconnected.

----------------------

Lysander set down the phone and stared at it for a few seconds, then sighed. "Nope, you haven't changed at all Eddy." Pausing for a few seconds, he continued after looking at the clock. "Wow, I didn't realize it was that time already, guess I'd better be going to bed too."

----------------------

The next morning, Kal walked up to the bathroom door, yawned, and yanked it open, stepping in and closing the door after him.

Eddy was down in the docking bay of the _Vergos_, working on his AC, Gothic Flame. He looked up with curiosity as he heard 3 loud slaps in rapid succession, then the yells of a man falling down the stairs. Disentangling himself from the computer board, he walked over to the stairwell, only to find Kal sprawled out on his back with three angry red marks on his face. "Damn man, what happened to you?"

Kal looked back at him with a goofy grin. "I walked in on Sophie... but boy was it worth it."

Eddy's face twisted into a thoughtful look, sending a shiver down Kal's spine. "Oh hey, Sand man called earlier." Kal abruptly relaxed, and Eddy continued without noticing. "He asked if the three of us wanted to meet up."

"Sandy? I haven't heard from that bastard in years. Is he on parole?"

"Not that I'm aware of, but he did call at four in the morning."

Kal thought for a moment, then frowned. "That's even worse."

----------------------

In the cafeteria, the other pilot that Lysander had mentioned, Dylan Lancing, was currently getting something to eat. He grabbed a tray, took it to the food dispenser and pressed down a white lever, staring in disgust at the paste that oozed from the nozzle. Sophie, who is standing in line behind him, follows suit. They both find a table and sit down from each other, then start to eat. Dylan took a bite of the paste, grimaced, then grinned and clapped his hands together in a sarcastic, yet childish manner.

"Ooh! Ooh! I know this flavor!! It's butt ointment!!"

Sophie, wearing a similar look of distaste, sighed. "Sure smells like it." She took a small bite of it, then spat it out violently. Pushing aside her tray and vigorously rubbing her tongue off, she spat; "Oh my god! It is butt ointment!"

Dylan gave her a strange look. "What?"

"Who the hell changed it?!"

"Eddy."

Sophie shot a death glare towards the docking bay. "Well, that figures."

Dylan, still wearing the same strange look, got up and walked over to the food dispenser, popped open the lid, and stared at the white can of paste inside. He turned it around a bit and started to read the label. "Says, 'Nachos, tacos and rice--'"

"Oi!" Sophie yelled in mid sentence, cutting him off. "That's bullshit!"

Dylan rolled his eyes and closed the machine. "No. It's butt ointment. Yesterday was bullshit."

Sophie groaned and covered her eyes with her hand. "That's it. I'm changing these things from now on. You chose dog piss, Kal chose bullshit, and Eddy chose butt ointment." The woman sighed and let her head droop so it was resting in her arms. _How the hell did I end up here?_

----------------------

An hour later, the three men were going about their buisness, which is to say absolutley nothing at all. Except for lounging around and talking about "guy stuff." Sophie, having absolutley no desire to even be in the next room, had "generously" volunteered to wait for Lysander.

An orange haired man wearing heavy combat armor walked up the _Vergos_. He looked down at a card in his hand, then looked at the ship, then at Sophie. He then looked back at the card, then at the ship, then back at Sophie, who watched him with a strange look. He looked at the card once again, then walked up to her slowly.

"Hi... I don't believe we've ever met. This IS Eddy's ship right?"

Sophie looked at him strangely."No. It's mine and some other guy's. But there is an Eddy on board." She paused, then shot him a suspicious look _Is this another guy that Eddy owes money to? _"Why do you ask?" Realization suddenly dawned on her. "Oh, wait... you're Lysander right?"

Lysander grinned. "Yep, that would be me."

Sophie walked up to him and started looking him up and down. "Ahh, I remember you. You got alot skinner since last time I saw you, and you've dyed your hair too. But why orange?." She paused, then went on. "I always considered you a dumb blonde, along with that black-haired idiot Eddy."

Lysander gave her the strangest look she'd ever gotten. "I'm sorry..." he spoke slowly and apoligetically. "I don't remember you... have we met?"

"Of course... back in school. Sophie Bridgett, remember?" Sophie returned the strange look in ernest, then gave him a stranger look when his eyes nearly popped out of his head and his jaw dropped open.

"S-Sophie?"

"Yeah, that's me."

"Ho-lee shyeeeet... Damn, I didn't even recognize you!"

"How could you? Kal did when we met. After I finished medical school and he completed his training as an MT pilot. Come on, I don't look THAT different from when I was in high school with you guys."

"Yes you do. Back then you had braces, those huge nerdy glasses, and buck teeth. Not only that, but you always had those horrible looking pigtails."

Sophie glared at him from half-closed eyes. "Are you finished yet?"

"Oh yeah, and you were overweight too."

"Well..." Sophie began, somewhat offended. "I grew out my hair when I moved out of my house because my Dad, the only one I was allowed to live with, didn't want me going around with anything else. I guess he thought I was going to be a prostitute. I got my braces off a month after we graduated from high school. I finally got the laser surgery for my eyes after High School as well. My so called 'buck teeth' was only a gap between my front teeth. And when I went to college I did a lot of lifting with heavy parts, so that trimmed me down and pretty much made me as I am now, and I didn't eat as much. Well, now that I think about it, I have changed a lot. As Kal said, I went from 'being the worst looker to being hotter than a jalapeño."

Lysander looked dazed for a second, then quickly shook himself out of it. "You can say that again."

Sophie gave him one of her death glares, then started yelling at him "And you haven't changed one bit you asshole!" She stalked over to an intercom and brtually smashed in the button. "Hey." She snarled into the spearker. "Your friend is here? How about you go greet him?!" With the bearing of an offended cat, she stalked away, leaving a very stunned Lysander in her wake.

"Well... damn... I didn't mean to be rude." A hand on his shoulder startled him out of his daze, and he turned around to find Faye and Kenja behind him, both looking concerned.

Kenja spoke first. "Hey, are you alright? We heard some screaming so we decided to check it out."

"Yeah... I'm fine Kenja... I think an old acquaintance has a stick up her ass... that's all."

Faye sniffed loudly. "She probably remembered a perverse trick you pulled on her."

"I... I did not!" Lysander blushed furiously, and Faye traded a knowing look with Kenja.

"Alright sandy boy, what'd you do the poor girl?"

Lysander seemed to shrink under Faye's accusing glare. "I... I just teased her a few times... that's all, I swear!"

"That was it?" Unbeknownst to the three, Kal had since been listening in on them from the decks above, and he stood there, his best 'yeah right' look upon his face. "You tormented that poor girl up until our junior year! I still remember when you dumped the sour milk that the school had gotten rid of all over her, then there was that time you threw up on her on purpose, then the time you hid her pants after phys ed with the help of another girl." Kal shook his head. "Face it sandy, you were a mean little boy."

Lysander grinned weakly. "Kal... Hey... I didn't see you there..." He turned back to Kenja and Faye, only to meet twin glares promising him a fate far worse than anything the corporations held in store for him. Lysander could only stand there, a deer in the proverbial headlights. "Oh jeebus..."

----------------------

"Tsk tsk tsk..." Kal scolded Lysander as the orange-haired raven held a pack of ice to his face. The only reply from the other man was to groan weakly. Dylan and Eddy leaned against the wall, shit-eaten grins spread across their faces.

"Oh man. I forgot they could hit that hard."

----------------------

Kenja and Faye sat across from each other, sulking. They both liked Lysander, but niether of them could believe that _their_ Lysander used to be so mean.

A few minutes later, Kal walked into the room, followed by Dylan, Eddy and Lysander. Lysander stopped, and the other 3 looked back at him.

"I've forgotten my manners." Despite the fact that his cheeks were angry red and swollen, Lysander grinned and continued. "Kal, Dylan, Eddy, meet Faye and Kenja. They're my... er... comrades." This comment earned him a murderous glare from Faye. 

"Hi. I'm Kal Rozor." Kal grinned and offered Faye his hand, secretly looking the redhead up and down, or so he thought. Faye took his hand slowly, and enveloped it in a crushing grip, giving him a disdainful look when he yelped and quicky pulled his hand away.

Eddy, deciding that he'd rather not take his chances with Faye, slipped up beside Kenja. "Hey there. My name's Eddy, what's up?" Kenja squealed and jumped forward as he fondled her behind, then turned around, smiled at him, and walked back beside him. A few seconds later, it was Eddy's turn to squeal as Kenja gave him a vicious pinch on the butt.

Dylan, who had been watching the entire proceedings, looked nervously from Faye, to Kenja, then back to Faye. After a few seconds of panicked thinking, he quickly decided what he'd do. "Hi." he grinned. "My name's Dylan. Nice to meet you two." He quickly mumbled something about having to go to the bathroom and swiftly ducked out of the doorway, drawing bemused looks from Lysander and the two women, but glares from Kal and Eddy.

----------------------

"So," Eddy was the first to speak as the gang headed towards a bar. "Did you plant those cameras or what?"

His only response was a glare from Lysander. "I'm not a pervert like you. Besides, I have no idea where the hell those three are going to go, and quite frankly, I don't give a damn."

"Why wouldn't you give a damn?" Eddy replied through his laughter. "As far as we know, they could be bi."

Lysander stared at him blankly.

"So." Eddy continued, undeterred. "Where shall we go?"

"A strip club?" Dylan suggested casually.

"No." Kal and Lysander's simultaneous replies cut him off, leaving both him and Eddy with a stunned look.

"Let's just go to a bar." Kal suggested, his tone implying that it was more than a suggestion. "We should catch up."

"Why? This IS a bar, with women in it!" Eddy exclaimed, disappointed.

"Well," Lysander began, with a flat voice. "I'd be all for it, but you three would be so busy drooling over the women that we wouldn't get the chance to talk or anything."

"Three? C'mon, I'm not THAT obsessed." Kal insisted.

Lysander had a brief flashback of Kal snitching on all the wrongs he had done to Sophie. "Yeah, I'd say you're obsessed with something... or someone else."

"What?" Kal asked, confused. _What the heck is he talking about?_

Lysander sighed. "Nevermind, let's just go to the damn bar already."

----------------------

"Hey, remember that time you stole all her clothes after Gym? And you got on my case just for stealing her pants!" Lysander laughed and glared at Kal simultaneously, causing Kal to laugh as well. Eddy and Dylan both took a sip of their beers, chuckling all the while.

"Yeah, well you still dumped that sour milk on her."

"Oh come on, that wasn't my idea." Lysander's boots suddenly became very interesting.

"It basically was, Eddy was only joking."

"Whaaat?! YOU BASTARD!!!!" Lysander reached over and started to playfully strangle Eddy, who pulled his arms away and went back to drinking his beer. Lysander slammed his hand down on the table, causing the others to look up. "Let's talk about something _other_ than how much fun we had torturing poor Sophie. Remember that time we flooded Mr. Corlborwitz's apartment?"

"As much as I regret doing that, yeah, I do remember. But we had to clean it up afterwards, which took weeks. Plus we had to pay for all the damages." Eddy spoke, sounding anything but cheerful.

"Hey, that bastard deserved it. He gave us homework assignments that he knew we'd never complete and failed us all for it anyways." Dylan put in his two cents, going back to his beer shortly afterwards.

Suddenly Kal burst out in a fit of hysterical laughter, drawing odd looks from the other three Ravens. He covered his face in his arms as he kept laughing, having trouble breathing because he was laughing so hard. Finally he's able to get himself under control. "I... rem-" Another burst of laughter interrupted him. "I remember when Dylan and Sandy put that stink bomb in Sophie's locker... but when she went there, it didn't go off. Sandy put it in the wrong locker and that one giant jock guy went there and PHOOM!"

Kal finally got a grip on himself as he straightened up, tears running down his eyes. "Oh god, that was hilarious! Then he goes off crying 'cause he smelt like sweaty socks! I don't know what you guys put in there, but man that reeked!"

Dylan and Lysander grinned at each other, and they both started to speak at the same time "Well... we'd tell you, but..." They looked at each other again, paused, and spoke in unison "It's better that you don't know."

"Tell me. I always wanted to know... I just never thought to ask Dylan." Kal replied, still chuckling.

"Yeah, c'mon, tell us man." Eddy pleaded after taking a swig from his beers

"Welll...." Dylan's resolve started to crumble.

"Wait." Kal pushed his beer aside, the taste of it suddenly becoming unpleasant. "Hold that thought." He suddenly stood up, walked over to the bar, and ordered a bottle of wine. The other three ravens watched Kal as he conversed with the female bartender, taking a lot longer than it would normally take to order a bottle of wine. He finally came back, looking sore. "Ok Dylan, now tell me, what was in that thing?"

Dylan looked at Kal strangely. "Alright... I'll tell you, but don't spread this around too much ok?" he leaned over and started whispering stuff into Kal's ear, Eddy listening in eagerly.

Kal's eyes were as wide as saucers by the time Dylan finished, and Eddy had a dreamy look on his face. Eddy was the first to speak. "Oh man, where did you guys get that stuff?"

"That's for us to know and you to find out... if you can." Lysander replied with a grin. 

"Man," Kal spoke up, recovering from the shock of hearing about the ingredients of the incredibly potent stink bomb. "That is EVIL!" He paused, then sighed. "But you know... with it all, there IS one thing I'm not proud of... the time I made her cry."

"Yeah man." Eddy spoke in a disapproving voice. "That wasn't funny at all, that was just mean."

"She made me mad..." Kal spoke quietly, not really wanting to remember what he did on that day so many years ago, although he knew that he would have to tell Lysander and Dylan, since they weren't there when it happened.

"What'd you do Kal?" Dylan asked curiously.

"Do I have to tell you guys?" Kal responded dully, wishing he never brought it up in the first place.

"Yeah, you do. Me and Sand man here are curious." Dylan's response left Kal cringing inwardly.

_Well, may as well get this over with. _"Fine. Well, we got picked to be partners for this project in our science class, and she went off to do things, and so did I. Later, she started yelling at me because I did some things wrong, well, a lot of things wrong actually. She started yelling at me... and I went off. I said 'jesus christ you stupid hiefer! Shut the hell up and let me figure this shit out you fat, ugly cow!', and she ran off crying." He paused, then ran a hand through his hair and sighed, slumping back in his seat. "I got three days of detention, suspended for two days, AND I had to write an apology to her." He paused again, then continued. "I probably would have hit her if Eddy hadn't pinned me down. Guess he's seen me angry too many times and knew what to do."

"You got that right... I saw you knock out that guy who bullied you in freshman year... and he was four years older than you." Eddy replied, dead serious.

"You said that to her, and she still works with you?" Dylan asked rather incredulously, still stunned by this event that he never knew of.

"With me?"

"I mean partner on the _Vergos_, I mean, hell, almost nobody would forgive someone for saying something like that." Dylan replied to Kal's question.

"He's right you know, if I said something like that to Faye, she'd be out of my life for good, if I even still had a life by the time she was done with me." Lysander chipped in.

"I know." Kal responded gloomily. "And I dont think that apology letter I wrote helped things either." He shook himself off and brightened up. "Now, tell me Sandy, where'd you meet those two girls?"

"Well..." Lysander leaned back and took a long draught from the beer. "That's kind of a long story..."

* * *

Author Notes: Before you people kill me for leaving you on a cliffhanger, yes, I WILL Get back to the story of how Kenja and Faye ended up living with Lysander, but I wanted to introduce all the other major characters first.

And yes, you'll get more mech-bashing action. These first chapters are mainly for introduction

* * *

To the Readers:

To bloodykitsune: Incredible words of wisdom my friend. I, as a person, have tried to understand girls many times, coming away sorely disappointed. Thank you very much for your compliments on Chapter 1. I just hope this one is as good! Chapter 3 is already at least 80 done, and I hope to get through at least half of chapter 4 by tomorrow. Have no fear. I will do my absolute best to update faster than the other authors in this section.


	3. Arc 1: The Martians

* * *

Jormagund sighed as he read the message. _He's challenging me... again?_ The message in question was a rather angry challenge from the 2nd ranked Raven on Mars, Ares. Jormagund had beaten Ares at least 3 times before in the past, yet the angry raven persisted, one day hoping that he could regain the rank of 1. 

"Is something wrong Jorma?"

The raven smiled as he heard his pet name. "Nothing Remille, just Ares getting angry again. I don't understand why he insists on challenging me when he knows the same thing will happen again."

"He's a stubborn one, just like you." slender arms wrapped around Jormagund's shoulders, and he grinned as a hand ruffled his short, dark green hair. but sighed as his thoughts turned back to the other Raven. "Oh come on Jorma. Don't let him get you down."

"Well, that's not the only reason. I heard that the disorder units are back." There was a gasp from behind him, and he turned around to confront Remille's ghost-white complexion. "Yeah. I know. Everyone thought they died with Klien, but now they're back." Remille's mouth worked silently, then she abruptly threw herself into Jormagund's arms, the said raven gave her a sympathetic look as she started to sob into his chest. The silver-haired woman finally managed to sob out a string of broken words.

"I... thought... dead... Klien... bastard... had.... almost... kill... me..." Buried in the folds of Jormagund's muscular arms, she was unable to see his face twist angrily, his eyes blazing death at whatever laid in front of him. She was, however, able to feel him squeeze her tighter.

_Damn you Klien. Damn you for all that you did to her, and damn you for killing so many of my friends... as well as all the others you killed... in your senseless quest for power. _Jormagund relived those final few moments deep inside Phobos for a second, then sighed and ran his hand through Remille's silky hair. "It's alright Remille, I stopped him the first time, and I WILL stop those monstrosities again."

Remille laughed from inside his arms. "That's what I love about you. You're so protective of me... of the people... of this planet."

"Well, even though I wasn't exactly born and raised here, I've come to love Mars, and all it holds. Although Zio Matrix and Emeraude's senseless wars threaten to engulf this planet in destruction, I still see this place as beautiful, in its own way."

After disentangling herself from his arms, Remille looked up into his dark purple eyes with her own light gray orbs, and smiled. Jormagund smiled back, then looked out the window. Although he hated to interrupt the romantic moment between him and Remille, he knew the legendary impatience of Ares well. Too well for his liking. "I suppose I'd better get Ares his answer..."

----------------------

Ares paced back and forth restlessly in front of Providence. The huge, red war machine was all ready to go, and seemed to command him to enter it and fight. _I'll get him this time. _He snarled mentally. _I'll humiliate him, and reclaim everything that he's stolen from me. My rank, my pride, my love. Everything._ Undaunted despite his many attempts to defeat the man generally regarded as the "savior of mars", he had challenged him again, and again, and again.

Only to find himself defeated each time, and a bit more broken in the spirit.

However, the pieces of his soul flared brightly, and each new crack only created a new opening for fire to spill out and engulf the hapless men, or women, who it spilled upon. This was the legendary anger of Ares, former "Nine-Breaker."

After spinning on his heel for the umpteenth time, the lanky man noticed his opponent across bridge from him, talking to a shorter woman with silver hair. His hazel eyes went wide for a moment, then bored down, creating a gaze with KARASAWA intensity at his opponent's back.

However, the other Raven was happily oblivious to his enraged opponent, as he rubbed the woman's cheek, then they kissed. By the time the larger raven had made his way to the bridge, Ares was ready to brutally murder him. "Hey buddy." The tone of his voice suggested anything but, however, "I didn't know you were getting cozy with a former frightener."

The barb totally missed its mark, only drawing a disapproving stare from Jormagund. "That's none of your business."

"Damn right it's my business. Are you going to get on their bandwagon? Start the new frightener movement and kill us all? Make the new frightener generation?" Ares carefully calculated his words, structuring his sentences to annoy and anger his opponent, but not enough to enrage him.

"No." The calm reply he received left him angrier than ever. Too enraged for words, he spun on his heel and stalked towards Providence, his bearing as stiff as offended royalty.

Jormagund stared at his retreating opponent's back. _Is it just me, or has he been getting angrier lately? He's changed ever since I defeated him... I don't think this is about pride and honor now. I think this is about revenge._

----------------------

"Today, ladies and gentlemen, we have a match between two legendary fighters!" The announcer bawled out the standard banter as the two ACs were admitted to the opposite sides of the arena. "To the west, we have Jormagund! The savior of mars, and current 9-Breaker enters Etal Base to defend his title once again!" The onlookers cheered as the black and purple AC lumbered through the gates to the arena.

Crush Dragon was anything but the typical AC. Heavyweight Reverse Joint legs formed a solid base for the lightweight core and heavyweight arms that made the body of the AC. An antenna-like head protruded from the middle of the core, giving it a creaturelike appearance. A large gray tube was clenched in its right hand, various sights and other instruments protruding from the large bazooka. A protrusion from the left arm split into 3 separate tubes, a focusing lens at the end of them. A handle jutted out from the end of the laserblade, and the whole assembly was painted a light brown. Rounding out the arsenal were a blue, trapezoidal missile launcher hanging over the left shoulder, and a large chaingun slung over the right, the black and blue weapons glinting maliciously in the glaring hue cast by the spotlights.

The black and purple AC stepped forwards, ready for a fight.

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AC Analysis: Crush Dragon-

Description: Heavy middleweight reverse joint AC. Moderately armed and armored. Moderate maneuverability. Exceptionally powerful right arm weapon. Well rounded and prepared for most situations.

Tech Base: Armored Core 2 (Armored Core 2: Another Age)

Head: EHD-WACS

Core: ECL-ONE

Arms: EAN-MWZ

Legs: ZLB-7744/VAT

Booster: ZBT-ZI/ARTERE

FCS: DOX-PG2

Generator: HOY-B1000  
Radiator: RPS-MER/SA

Inside: N/A

Extension: N/A

Arm Unit R: WWG-BZ-B1100

Arm Unit L: ZLS-T/100

Back Unit R: EWC-CNG4000

Back Unit L: EWM-S608 (ZWM-M55/6)

Optional Parts: SP-S/SCR

SP-ENE-SCR

SP-BSI-LE

SP-CIR-K

SP-BFS/LOSP

SP-CBRK

SP-BMALAD

Colors:

Uniform Color Scheme

Base; R: 0

G: 0

B: 0

Aid; R: 60

G: 0

B: 60

Optional; R: 50

G: 0

B: 90

Detail; R: 200

G: 200

B: 200

Joint; R: 70

G: 0

B: 60

Other Attributes: The pilot is not PLUS, therefore the AC has to kneel to use its Chaingun weapon.

Author Notes: Normally this AC would probably have a tough time defeating the mighty Ares with his uberly-cheap Providence, but for the purpose of this fic the ACs are going to be on a more even level of competition. And no, the "Crush" in "Crush Dragon" is NOT intended as a romantic interest, It's meant to be crush as in flatten, pancake, smash, etc etc...

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"And to the east, we have Ares! Can the former 'Nine Breaker' regain his title today? Only time will tell!" Fans of Ares that happened to be watching the event cheered. Those who weren't watching the event? Well, they were none the wiser.

Providence happened to be a humanoid AC. The medium sized red machine housed a light brown box on one of its shoulders, a moderately sized laser cannon slung over the other. A MOONLIGHT laserblade was welded to the right arm, the oddly shaped weapon a distinct threat to those who knew its power. A remake of the legendary earth weapon, the KARASAWA II, sat impassively in its right hand, ready to unleash its supreme destructive power at the slightest whim of the Raven inside.

A dorsal-like fin stuck up from the head, giving it an almost fishlike look. However, the armored visor look of the base canceled the earlier impression, making the overall scheme of the head look like some sort of nightmare helmet. The AC of the former 9-breaker stepped forward, also ready for a fight.

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AC Analysis: Providence-

Tech Base: Armored Core 2

Armored Core 2 – Arena Rank 1

Author Notes: I weakened this AC somewhat so it would be more of an even match between Providence and Crush Dragon. I never did like the fact that the top 10 arena ACs were so frickin' powerful.

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Jormagund and Ares faced each other as the countdown timer began, each of them starting up their ACs, both getting ready for the conflict. Jormagund relaxed with his spare time, while Ares used it to tense up more, focusing on nothing but defeating, smashing, humiliating, eviscerating, and annihilating his opponent by any means, even cheating. As the timer reached zero, the announcer bawled "GO!", and both the Ravens activated their overboost at the same time.

Neither of them giving up a step, both ACs collided in the middle of the arena with a sickening crunch, armor plates scattering all over the pavement of the base. The overboosts abruptly cut off as the ACs sensed the impact, and both machines staggered back, momentarily stunned.

Jormagund was the first to recover, and launched a vicious blade assault at his opponent, who managed to parry the strikes with his own blade, the three beams of purple energy being sliced in half by the huge blue one, only to be abruptly cut off as a bazooka shot smashed into the arm, blowing a crater in the armor and sending Providence staggering back.

Ares growled and surged forward once again, Providence's laserblade erupting from his left arm. His advance was abruptly halted when a stream of rounds slammed into his AC's chest, forcing him to strafe boost to the left, or risk taking fatal damage at the hands of Crush Dragon's chaingun. He quickly switched to his medium missile launcher, and waited somewhat patiently for the thing to lock on. The extensions that adorned the AC's shoulders were already active, and a salvo of eight missiles was launched at Jormagund's AC.

The chaingun long since folded up, Jormagund strafed right, then left again as the missiles adjusted to compensate for his sudden motion. They overshot and blasted some armor off a nearby building. The reverse joint AC brought its Bazooka up again and fired a round at Ares, nailing him square in the chest and almost knocking the red AC over. Ares staggered backwards once again, forced to retreat under the blistering heat of Jormagund's assaults.

As the former 9-Breaker hopped behind a building to shield himself, Jormagund switched to his small missile launcher, and started to lock on to his opponent. As he achieved 6 locks, the purple-tinged AC's legs buckled beneath it, then heaved it high into the night sky. As he cleared the building, Jormagund activated the small missile launcher, raining a barrage of missiles on Ares. Taken by surprise, the former Nine-breaker could do nothing but scream and swear as the eight missiles bashed into his AC, breaking off more armor over the front of the core. Providence's KARASAWA II swung into line with Crush Dragon, and Ares' AC squeezed the trigger mercilessly, raining blue gobs of energy on his opponent.

Jormagund was forced back by the ferocity of Ares' attacks, but was far from out of the fight. The large AC planted its feet apart and squatted once again, its chaingun unfolding from its back as it rooted itself and waited for its opponent to emerge. Providence obliged him a few seconds later, only to get a stream of red-hot ammo in the leg. Ares screamed in fury as his AC was unbalanced and crashed to the earth, landing on its face. The red AC rolled over and regained its feet, losing some more armor from the bazooka carried by Crush Dragon. _Time to end this now!_ Jormagund growled to himself as he hit overboost, ignoring the KARASAWA II shots that melted and blasted his armor. The reverse-joint AC lurched to near-impossible speeds, its laserblade raised high, the 3 purple rods of energy blazing as they plunged into the base of Providence's core.

Ares screamed in fury again as his AC slumped over, the generator petering out from being skewered. He started swearing furiously and abusing the controls of the AC in a desperate, but futile attempt to get it working again.

"It's over Ares. Calm down." Despite the complete loss of power, the radio system still functioned by drawing power from a backup battery. The #2 Raven felt something snap deep inside him as Jormagund's stern voice addressed him.

"_NO!!!_" Ares shrieked. "_IT'S NOT OVER UNTIL I'VE AVENGED MYSELF!!! NOT UNTIL I HUMILIATE AND DESTROY YOU THE WAY YOU DESTROYED ME!!!!_"

"What are you talking about?" Jormagund's perplexed voice betrayed no hint of anything other than confusion. "Wait, hold that thought." There was a loud snapping sound, causing Ares to wince. "Ok, we're on a private line. Now tell me... what ARE you talking about?"

Ares' head drooped until it hit the controls. "You... destroyed me... when you defeated me."

"What are you talking about?"

"I... used to be famous... had a wonderful life... I had everything... until _you_ defeated me... On that day, when I lost... everyone left me... My woman... my friends... my fame... my pride... I was reduced to nothing... I became #2..."

"Ares. It's not my fault your girl was using you for your fame, and it's not my fault your friends were the fair weather type. Get over it and move on with your life, there's no use trying to get petty revenge on me for wrongs that I've never inflicted upon you."

_No. He's wrong... _A voice screamed inside Ares. _HE'S WRONG!! IT'S ALL HIS FAULT!! HE'S THE ONE WHO DID THIS TO YOU THEREFORE HE MUST DIE!_ But Ares knew better. He had known better all along. He knew that it wasn't the other Raven's fault. Torn between betrayal and acceptance, Ares did the only thing that he could think of.

He cried.

----------------------

"And the former 9-Breaker is defeated once again! The Savior of Mars has successfully defended his title! The only thing that remains a mystery is why the Ravens haven't emerged from their ACs for so long!" The reporter spewed a steady stream of words into the microphone, staring right into the camera. "What's this? The defeated Ares is emerging from his AC!"

The head of Providence popped open, and the brown-haired, lanky raven stepped out, his rusty eyes slightly red and puffy, but his face, and manner determined and resolute.

"Ares. You were just defeated for the 7th time by the Savior of Mars, Jormagund. How do you feel about this latest defeat?" Ares smiled.

"Refreshed."

The reporter looked at him strangely, then went to her next question. "How do you feel towards Jormagund? He's defeated you several times in the past. Do you have a grudge towards him? Or any hard feelings?"

"I used to hate him. I used to blame him for all the things that happened to me after the first time he defeated me. But not anymore. Now that I've come to terms with what happened, I think I see a kindred spirit in him."

The reporter looked at him even more strangely. "But you two are famous rivals, the animosity between you two is legendary! What happens now that you no longer hate him?"

"Simple." Ares replied. "We become friends."

The reporter fainted.

----------------------

Jormagund opened up the door to his and Remille's apartment, to greet the Raven standing in the doorway. "Hey, Helzehen, I'm glad you could make it."

"It was my honor to come." Helzehen nodded to Jormagund before continuing. "May I come in?"

"Of course, I'm the one who invited you here after all." The "Savior of Mars" stepped aside to allow his friend into his residence.

For one who expected a nerdy bookworm, Helzehen would sorely disappoint. His salt-and-pepper hair hinted at advanced age, yet there were no wrinkles on his skin to betray the ceaseless onslaught of time. Penetrating steel-gray eyes observed far more than just the surface of things, they penetrated deeper, drawing hidden meanings that one didn't know things had. Although he was only of average height and build, his presence commanded respect and authority.

But when he smiled, you knew you deserved it, and right now he grinned at Jormagund, removing his shoes before stepping further into his friend's house. "So, what's going on? I know you didn't invite me over here for no reason."

"Well, actually, I was hoping you could inform me. But I was hoping you'd be able to stay for dinner too."

"Hmmm, what are you having?"

"I'm not sure just yet, but rest assured that Remille is as good in the kitchen as she is in an AC."

"I suppose I could give it a try." Helzehen teased his two friends.

"Hey, was that an insult to my cooking?" Remille faked an offended tone from the kitchen.

"Oh, Helzehen. Before I forget, I invited someone else to dinner."

"Ah, really? And who would that be?"

"Well..." Jormagund rubbed the back of his head, suddenly sheepish. "Ares."

"Whaaaaaaat!??" Helzehen's eyes just about bugged out of his head. "THE Ares?!"

The doorbell rang. "The one and only." Jormagund replied as he walked over to answer it. Sure enough, Ares stood in the doorway, in casual attire. His shirt was yellow, and had a huge red worm with a cowboy style hat and sunglasses holding the planet Mars while spearing earth through with its other hand. "GO HOME!" blazed over the picture in large, angry red letters.

Jormagund shuddered, unpleasant memories finding their way into his head. _I wish he hadn't worn that shirt..._ Jormagund was forced to relive those last few moments deep within the Quire Missile Silo, where he had been forced to fight Helios to the death. Despite his best efforts, the young raven had been killed. The Martian sighed and put the memory behind him, chalking it up as one more regret on a long string of remorses.

"Hey Ares. Glad to see that you could make it."

"Hey yourself." Ares looked at the other Martian, unsure of himself still. Although they had made up after years of hatred, he still felt like things were a little strained between them. "May I come in?"

"Sure, I'm the one who invited you, after all." Jormagund waved him in, and Ares stepped over the threshold, removing his shoes.

"Hey Remille! Ares just came, so you might want to get started on that 'mystery dinner' you said you'd make!"

"Alright!" Remille's cheerful response came from the kitchen, and the clatter of pots and pans could be heard as the slender woman set to work.

"So..." Jormagund tried to smooth out the tensions, as Helzehen, displaying a remarkable lack of composure, gaped vacantly at Ares, incredulous that Jormagund would invite his mortal enemy over for dinner. "Why don't we have a seat? The recent developments are very disturbing to say the least, and if you faint you won't hit your head on the floor."

Helzehen nodded grimly, "Indeed. And let's not forget about that unidentified ship that was detected near Deimos."

Jormagund grimaced "I'd forgotten about that..." the three men walked over to a table and sat down across from each other. Ares looked confused, while Jormagund and Helzehen looked deadly serious.

"I don't understand, what's all this about?" Ares inquired, hoping that whatever the two other Ravens were worried about wasn't too bad.

Jormagund looked at Helzehen knowingly, and they both looked at Ares. "Seems you're a bit behind the times." Jormagund cracked his knuckles then his neck. "Alright, let's get you up to speed on the recent Martian news... As you'll recall, it's been 5 years since Leos Kilen's attempted revolt." Ares nodded, and the other Raven continued. "I defeated him... deep inside Phobos... in single combat..." Jormagund shuddered, reliving those last few moments deep in the moon altogether unwillingly. "Anyways, it's been 5 years since then, and those armored monstrosities—the disorder units, that once rampaged across mars' surface have since disappeared." Ares nodded again, well acquainted with the Disorder units, as he had fought them on numerous occasions. "Well..." Jormagund looked at the other raven grimly, sending a shiver down the lanky man's spine. "They're back."

----------------------

"Well, let's eat!" Remille gave the other three ravens a sunny smile, then started cutting apart the 'mystery dinner' that had taken her well over an hour and a half to prepare. The dish looked like a giant, milk white shrimp. Blue veins stood out throughout the creature, and it laid curled up on the plate, its many legs protruding from its body. Jormagund sliced off one of the legs and snapped it open, sucking out the meat from inside. Helzehen had cut off a choice section of the tail, while Remille was eating a chunk out of the middle.

Ares, however, didn't like the look of the... _thing_ laid out before him, but knew that it was incredibly impolite to refuse the food that your host prepared for you. He tenativley took a knife and sliced off part of the back of the shrimp-like thing, putting it down on his plate.

"Oh come on Ares, don't be so shy. It tastes like shrimp, but richer."

Ares looked at the thing, cut off a piece of it, and shuddered. "If you say so." He raised a thin sliver to his lips and took it into his mouth, thoughtfully chewing it for a few seconds. "Wow! This is really good!" Remille smiled victoriously as Ares started eating the shrimp thing with a vigor rivaling Jormagund's and Helzehen's.

----------------------

The shrimp-thing, several green-colored, apple tasting things, blue-colored meat resembling steak, and radioactive green drinks later, the 4 ravens sat down at the table in the living room, a variety of sheets and plans spread before them, as well as the drinks.

Jormagund was the first to speak. "As you can see, the situation doesn't look good. These things are more heavily armored and armed than before, and show a startling variety of weaponry, as you can see from this picture." The "savior of mars" plunked a picture of a variety of 4 and 6 legged, gray armored bugs assaulting a defensive position with weapons ranging from Lasers to Machine Guns.

"The Hellas plains have recently been overrun, and the Arden River isn't far behind, Zio's already lost its research lab there to the things." Helzehen sounded like a man stating a death sentence.

"What about Zamda base? Does Balena still control that?" Remille asked curiously, pointing to a location on one of the maps.

"Negative." Helzehen shook his head. "Balena lost control of Zamda to the remnants of Emeraude, but the base was overrun by Disorder units shortly afterwards."

"Zamda base fell? That doesn't sound good..." Ares finally contributed to the discussion.

"It's not." Jormagund agreed. "As of two years ago, Zamda base was the most heavily fortified base on the planet... I guess they learned their lesson from when I smashed through their defenses with appalling ease." Jormagund grinned sheepishly, and Remille smiled proudly at him.

Helzehen spoke again, sounding even more grim than before. "Overall, the situation is anything but good. These things have been able to defeat even some of the more advanced MTs with ease. Only large numbers of ACs have managed to keep them at bay, and even AC groups have been overwhelmed by some of the larger assaults. Even masses of corporate troops are having trouble keeping them at bay. It's only a matter of time before all of mars is overrun by them."

_Klien... _Jormagund thought spitefully. _Was this the final act you spoke of?_ "Well, speaking of Disorder units, the corporations have been paying good money to the people who can fight them off."

Ares nodded "That's very true."

Jormagund cast a glance towards the computer in the far corner of the apartment. "Speaking of money, I wonder if there are any recent contract offers out there."

----------------------

Jormagund browsed through the various contracts, the other three Ravens standing behind him. "Hey Jorma. Check that one out." Jormagund blushed as the other 2 snickered.

"She's got a pet name for you?" Helzehen chuckled. "Guess you two have gotten pretty cozy... but that's to be expected."

"What do you mean?" Ares looked at Helzehen curiously, still feeling out of place.

"Well, they got married last year."

"Yeah." Jormagund pitched in. "I still don't get how I went from 'a guy sent by Emeraude' to 'Jorma'." Remille blushed and buried her face in his neck.

Ares fainted.

----------------------

After the former Nine-Breaker had been revived, the four continued to contract surf. Jormagund shaking his head sadly at the number of corporate warfare contracts. "They're still fighting amongst themselves at a time like this?" His rhetorical question wasn't graced with an answer, but he could feel that the other three ravens agreed with him.

"Hey, take a look at that one." Ares pointed to the screen.

"Which one?" Jormagund couldn't quite follow his finger.

"That one."

"Oh, that one." Jormagund double clicked on the contract, and the four Raven's eyes quickly went from carefully neutral to outright surprised, then to aghast.

"Well well, I must say I never saw this one coming." Helzehen's voice, considerably smaller, echoed the other three's sentiments.

"They're trying to retake Zamda base? That's suicide." Remille sounded equally shocked.

"Suicide, perhaps. But it sounds like a challenge, and I like a challenge. Besides, look at the size of that reward." Jormagund licked his lips. "I accept."

"I go where you go, my Jorma." Remille nestled her chin into his shoulder, and wrapped her arms around his neck.

"I shall accompany you." Helzehen nodded resolutely. "You will undoubtedly need some help in this endeavor, plus, I can lend you some support fire with Scholar's missile racks."

"I'm in."

"Ares. Nobody's making you do this, It's perfectly ok if you don't want to do this." Remille turned to face the former Nine-Breaker, and the other two nodded, agreeing with her.

"No. It wouldn't be right if I didn't go. I've got to make up all the times we've fought somehow, haven't I?"

Jormagund looked at Ares, a newfound respect for the second-ranked raven burning in his eyes. "You don't have to make up anything Ares, everything's OK now."

"Sorry." Ares glared at the "savior of mars", "You're not getting rid of me that easily."

Jormagund grinned "Ah, there's the Ares I used to know." He looked at his three companions, then selected the contract. "Are you guys sure about this?" The other three nodded. "So be it." He double clicked the accept button.

"Well," The savior of mars groaned, stretching out in the chair. "Looks like we've got a lot of planning to do. Best to get to work."

* * *

Author Notes: BAM! Another cliffhanger. Bet you people are going to kill me huh? Sweatdrops as a large force of heavy MTs march up outside his door. Oh jeebus... 

Ok! Ok! I promise I'll write about the invasion of Zamda base soon!

By the way, if some of you readers could tell me what you think of my AC Analysis, I'd really appreciate it. I put it in there so that if you liked the ACs that I used you could make them yourself, and see just how good they are. (Or how bad they are!)

See Kitsune? 1 update a day, and I'm already half done with chapter 4 and half of chatper 5. I'll beat you other authors yet!! HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA!!!!

* * *

To the readers: 

Retributi0n: Thanks for your support buddy, and thanks for prereading this chapter, as well as chapter 4. I really appreciate it! I'll make sure to make Kal, Lysander, Dylan and Eddy deeper, but I've got to introduce all the other characters first! (Dunno about making Kal, Eddy and Dylan any deeper though, you should read Delta Squad for more on thier personalities.)


	4. Arc 1: The Emotionless Killers

Omega was feeling emotionless today.

As he stared down at the dead man next to him, he found himself thinking.

_What's the point of life if you can't die? _

The man beside him had met his end at the hands of Omega just a few minutes earlier, finding out firsthand that it was a mistake to rob the highest-ranked Raven on earth as his neck was brutally snapped in two.

_Why did you try to rob me anyways? I know I'm a marked man, but I couldn't have looked like an attractive target._

Omega stood up, his dark blue hair sticking to his forehead from the rain. His blue sweatshirt, and blue pants, which were in rather poor condition from being worn too many times, clung to his solid frame due to being soaked. Blood spattered the arms of his shirt, and some had gotten on his knees. The Raven gathered the robber's corpse into his arm, and walked down the alleyway.

_This dumpster is a fitting place. _

He kicked the dumpster open and effortlessly heaved the corpse into it, leaving the lid open for anyone who wandered by to open the lid and find the dead man inside. As the blue haired man walked out of the alley, he jammed his hands into his pocket and watched all the people rushing by, some looking at him strangly due to the bloodstains on his shirt.

_All of them hurrying to get pointless things done before their pointless lives come to an end. It's quite pathetic. Yet sometimes I wish I were inclined to hurry... and get those pointless things done. _

The brief stab of regret overwhelmed Omega's normally numb mind, and he dropped to his knees, holding his head. Even more people stared at him, yet nobody stopped to help him. The number-one Raven managed to recover his dignity and get up a short while later, and began the long walk back to his home.

----------------------

Home, as it happened, was a dingy little shack on the outside of town. Although he was one of the richest, most powerful, and most influential men on earth, he felt no inclination to move to better quarters.

_It's better to find fufuillment in poverty than to have everything and feel as if your life is empty, hollow... without a purpose._

Another stab of regret caused him to keel over once again, and he fought hard to keep the tears from coming out.

_I must be losing control... I've never felt this much emotion before._

The raven dragged himself over to his pathetic excuse for a bed, and plopped down in it, laying out and stretching his arms behind his head.

No TV, no Radio, minimal Electricity, no Water, none of the modern conviences that people had grown so used to. Anyone would wonder why the Number-One raven lived in such squalor. Even if they figured that he was a Miser, they would still ask; "How does he occupy himself in his spare time?"

_I sit. And I think. I ponder, I reflect. I do many things that normal people don't do nearly enough of. And I'm perfectly fine._

Fine was a relative definition. Most would consider him either insane or as some sort of monster for being able to commit a cold-blooded murder and walk away with only a brief stab of guilt.

_Most have not had to go through the things that I have. Most wouldn't even live to tell the tale._

If they heard his thoughts, many would indeed consider Omega insane. The raven spent almost all his time as a prisoner of his own thoughts, and was generally completley devoid of emotion.

_Emotion can be bad. It makes people lose control... act irrationally. However, emotion can be good. It can let people be joyful, happy, inspire them to do great deeds. However, I would rather have no emotion. That way I can decide what needs to be done, and not have any inhibitions towards achieving my goal._

Upon hearing this, most people would immediatley sign him off to a hospital that treated the mentally ill, but most likely to those special places where they keep the insane people. And not passive insane either. The kind of insane people that would go out and beat a dozen people to death with a steel dildo while dressed in a bugs bunny suit.

_I am not insane. I am perfectly in control of my actions. I appraise the situation, see what needs to be done, and I do it. No rest, no mercy. No matter what._

Many would dismiss Omega as a homicidal maniac who was obsessed with vengeance. But in the typical optomistic mood of most of the populace, he would be better with some treatment and medication.

_I am as I always will be._

----------------------

The program was impaitent. As impaitent as a program could get. Despite all its efforts, it could see the great destruction unfolding once again, the paltry surface developments it had made for humanity collapsing once again under the weight of nuclear warfare, and humankind being forced underground again. The program once again tried something that it had tried idilly over the years.

_Nest.exe execute. _

_ERROR: Nest.exe is not responding. _

The computer terminated the sequence, then turned its "thoughts" to more productive connect.

_Connecting..._

_Connecting..._

_Connection established. _The program checked over its latest project. Everything appeared to be in order.

_Disorder.exe execute._

_ERROR: File could not be found._

Even though the program could undoubtedly browse though the many files avalible at it's "fingertips," it chose not to do so. Hurrying the process would only mean failure. The program needed to take its time... make sure that everything was laid out properly. Only with paitence could come success. It had once tried to hurry things long ago, only to have its agenda viciously hurled back in its face when the Raven Hustler Two had used the AC known only as Eight Ball to brutally smash its attempt to prevent the second destruction that it was certain was coming.

The program's plans were thwarted, and the "Second destruction" never came to pass.

However, it could see things were starting to crumble again. Leos Klien, Crest, Mirage, Kisaragi, Nerves Concord, Global Cortex, Emeraude, Zio Matrix, Balena, the Disorder Units. All that it had worked for over the past 20 years could be lost in a matter of days. The program couldn't let that happen. It needed to remove them from the equation.

There was another warrior that had threatened its equation 20 years ago, but someone else had taken care of that one. The other warrior was impossible to kill at the moment, but the program knew that it only needed to be paitent and an opportunity would present itself.

Both warriors were still alive today, and the program's equation no longer had a variable with their names on it.

_You may not go by the name of Hustler Two anymore... but I will find you... and kill you... Norman Smith._

The program went back into standby, waiting for its chance to arrive.

* * *

Author Notes: Ho Hum. Another day another update. Chapter 5 is done but I'm not posting that until tomorrow. Chapter 8 is in the works, and hopefully I can get it at least half done by the end of tonight. Yes, I will work on 6 and 7, but I need my friend's help, and he's staying the night at a friend's, so I wont get to talk to him until as late as the day after tomorrow. 

Who's Hustler Two? Who's Norman Smith? And when is the invasion of Zamda base going to commence? Guess you're going to have to wait to find out! (Smiles)

Here's some humor for you. It hit me out of nowhere earlier today, so I figured I'd go ahead and post it.

* * *

Me: With my new action markers, I can actually do stuff without confusing the readers now!

Omega: What's the point of having action markers if you don't use them?

Me: (Grabs a glass of water) There, happy?

Omega: I see. So do a pointless thing with the pointless action markers.

Me: Well, it's not exactly pointless. If I don't drink something I'll get thirsty.

Omega: What's the point of drinking? You'll just get thirsty again.

Me: Well, I don't want to die from dehydration.

Omega: What's the point of dying? You'll only-- Wait a second... ARGH! I've been tricked!


	5. Arc 1: The Unchained

"I guess this is it. At least for you anyways." A rough voice emanated from a medium-sized brown AC. The AC stood amidst a huge pile of twisted metal, its armor scarred and pitted from dozens of hits during the colossal battle. It let the spread bazooka rest at its right side, the moonlight on its left arm dropping down a little as it relaxed. The chaingun over its back was covered with soot, indicating that it had been fired many times during the fight. The missile launcher was in somewhat better shape, only being pockmarked from the stray hit or two.

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AC Analysis: Liberator-

Description: A middleweight AC. Capable of stunning opponents with its spread bazooka, as well as using its multi-missile launcher and chaingun to bring considerable power to bear upon the enemy. The Moonlight blade makes it deadly in close combat.

Tech Base: Armored Core 3: Silent Line

Head: CHD-06-OVE

Core: CCL-01-NER

Arms: CAL-44-EAS

Legs: MLM-XA3/LW

Booster: MBT-OX/002

FCS: PLS-ROA

Generator: KGP-ZS4 (Or is it Z54? I can't tell)

Radiator: RIX-CR10

Inside: N/A

Extension: CWEM-AM40

Arm Unit R: MWG-SBZ/24

Arm Unit L: MLB-MOONLIGHT

Back Unit R: CWC-CNG-300

Back Unit L: MWM-MM16/1

Optional Parts: OP-S-SCR

OP-E/SCR

OP-ECMP

OP-E-LAP

Colors:

Uniform Color Scheme

Base; R: 71

G: 59

B: 0

Aid; R: 124

G: 102

B: 56

Optional; R: 180

G: 123

B: 0

Detail; R: 200

G: 200

B: 0

Joint; R: 47

G: 35

B: 0

Other Attributes: The pilot is PLUS, therefore the AC doesn't have to kneel to use the chaingun, and can boost for extended periods of time.

Author Notes: I think I deserve a pat on the back for bringing Unfettered's AC from AC2:AA to AC3:SL without it going overweight. I had to make some sacrifices, but that's the end result. Woohoo. Ok, now that I've finished with my little self-propelled ego inflation, on with the story shall we?

Another Note: Yes, I know that you can't have optional parts and the OP-INTENSIFY on at the same time, but this guy is PLUS, so the AC is treated as if he had all those optional parts equipped, as well as the intensify, kind of like AC1 and 2, where you could be PLUS AND have optional parts.

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_Well, so much for the "finest" of the troops of the vaunted Guards. I was expecting more from them... even if they're just government troopers. _The raven inside the brown AC sighed, then focused his thoughts elsewhere. _I hope Sumika is ok. I haven't heard a transmission from her for a while._

"Unfettered." The speakers startled the brown AC's pilot out of his reverie, and he jumped, catching on the restraining straps. His face twisted into a grimace as the straps cruelly bit into his flesh, forcing him back down. _Ouch. I hate it when that happens._

"Unfettered?" The same female voice came over the comm. Unfettered sighed and shook his head, his brown spiky hair pretty much unaffected by the sudden motion.

"Yeah, I'm here. What's going on Sumika?" _Good. She's ok. That's a big relief._

"Well, I managed to take out most of the incoming enemies, but another wave managed to make it to the elevator."

_Another wave of them? Liberator won't be able to take much more damage before it goes down._ "Understood, preparing to intercept. By the way, how are the support MTs doing?"

A sigh came over the comm. "One of them got destroyed by the incoming forces. Two others have taken moderate damage, and the last one is pretty much intact, but he said he was running low on ammo. I'm holding them off pretty much by myself."

_Typical terrorist bastards. Letting the others do all the fighting while they just step to the side and watch the results. _"I see. And you?"

"I've taken moderate damage, and my ammo won't last forever, but all that I really need is a nice, hot bath and I'll be fine."

_I see. So she's taken some damage, but nothing to be worried about, and her ammo should be just about reaching the halfway point by now._ Unfettered was jerked out of his thoughts as the elevator doors opened, and 3 brown, wide-shouldered MTs trooped out, aiming their pulse rifles at him and bathing Liberator with a screaming blitz of energy bursts. Unfettered strafed left, then returned fire with the chaingun.

One of the MTs took the stream full on, the medium-impact rounds peppering its legs and torso. Its armor flaked off its armored body, and fell to the ground like discarded potato chips. The other two MTs boosted into the air, their ascent being arrested by the ceiling of the storage building. The first MT met its demise at the end of Liberator's chaingun, exploding into a shower of shrapnel.

The second MT met its own end a few seconds later, the victim of Liberator's massive spread bazooka.

The third MT panicked, and fled to a back corner of the room, frantically shooting darts of blue energy at Liberator, who closed in on it like a flock of piranhas closes on a drowning cow. "You're mine." Unfettered growled as the MOONLIGHT flashed out in a searing arc, slicing the MT in half along the torso.

"Unfettered. This is Sumika. There's another wave of them coming!"

Unfettered groaned. "Roger that, I'll be ready." the Raven checked over his AC. _Let's see... 1028 AP left. 3 ammo for my spread bazooka, and only 56 ammo left in my chaingun. I still haven't used my damn missile launcher, so it still has 16 shots left. Curse Multis for not working indoors._ The elevator doors opened once again, and 2 MTs stomped out, looking even more determined to take down Liberator. _It's just my imagination. They only look more intimidating because I'm less intimidating. _Liberator started hailing them with chaingun fire before they had a chance to fully clear the elevator, the salvo of bullets ripping the right arm off the first MT, and damaging the pulse rifle of the second. The weapon abruptly clicked as it ran out of ammunition.

_Shit. That's not a good thing. _Unfettered toggled over to the Bazooka, and shot one of his last trio of spreads at the first MT. The first round hit it in the forehead, obviously rattling the machine's pilot, judging from the way it took a few steps back, but not seriously damaging it. The second and third shots missed wide, crashing into the wall and exploding with a moderate concussive force. The second of his last 3 shots missed altogether as the MT boosted to the right, managing to land a few more pulse rifle hits on Liberator's legs. Unfettered cursed as his AP dropped to 837. _I'm going to die. There's no way I can hold them both off with one shot and my multi missiles._ Unfettered punched in the overboost and raced towards the first MT, blasting it with the bazooka at point blank range. The brown machine was eviscerated as the shots cored it through, and it blew up with enough force to throw Liberator and its companion back.

_Well, this is the end of me. No ammo, and I don't have enough AP left to corner the guy and kill him with my moonlight. _The last MT got up and started firing at Unfettered, who didn't even bother to move as his AP sunk to 638, then to 429. _Yep, this is the end for me. No more Mr. Invincible. _He was distracted from his thoughts as the last MT got ripped in half by a burst of machine gun fire.

"Sumika?" The female raven's pink AC stepped through the doors of the opposite elevator.

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AC Analysis: Flashpoint-

Description: moderately light and relatively fast, the high ammo machine gun ensures that this AC can stay in combat for a long time without having to resupply. The missiles provide a backup weapon, or additional support fire if need be.

Tech Base: Armored Core 3: Silent Line

Head: MHD-MX/BEE

Core: MCM-MI/008

Arms: CAM-11-SOL

Legs: CLM-02-SNSK

Booster: MBT-NI/GULL

FCS: VREX-ST-12

Generator: MGP-VE905

Radiator: RMR-SA44

Inside: N/A

Extension: N/A

Arm Unit R: MWG-MG/800

Arm Unit L: CLB-LS-2551

Back Unit R: KWM-AD30

Back Unit L: CWM-S60-10

Optional Parts:

Colors:

Sample Colors – Shark Pink

Other Attributes: Sumika isn't PLUS, not that that really matters, as none of her weapons require kneeling to use.

Author Notes: Is it just me, or is Sumika's Project Phantasma AC really weak? I let her take on an MT for like 5 minutes, and no matter what she did, she STILL couldn't kill the damn thing. So, I made sure that her AC was more powerful, but still keeping close to the original looks and designs. I took some liberties with the head, but that's because the BEE is so much better than that old, stupid head model, the GRY/NX or whatever. I always hated the way that thing looked, and its performance was nothing to drool over either. (Unless you were going for pure armor and defense)

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"I figured you could use some help."

"I'd better not have to pay you for this." Unfettered grinned, speaking in a playful tone.

"Nah, I think I'll give you a discount this time." Sumika laughed, and the other Raven joined her, leaving a few confused MT pilots on the roof scratching their heads, wondering what the heck was so funny.

----------------------

"Typical terrorist bastards." Unfettered growled as he looked over the mail. "Not only do they offer up impossible missions, they don't pay you nearly enough for them." The tall, well-built raven paused, then continued his rant. "Crest, Mirage and Kisaragi pay much better money for missions that aren't nearly as difficult."

"How much did you get?"

"Not nearly enough." The brown haired mercenary ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "The cost of ammo and repairs put me deep in the red for this one. Luckily I had some money to spare, so I'm not broke myself." Unfettered felt an arm curl around his, and he looked down to see Sumika leaning against him.

"Treeeent..." she groaned playfully, leaning against him. "What happened to all that money I paid you?"

Unfettered, known outside of Global Cortex as Trent Hawkins, grinned sheepishly. "AC parts." Sumika brushed her long, raven hair out of her face, then frowned at him lightly.

"Allllll that money?" Sumika turned and leaned into him some more, so Trent could feel her breasts pressing against his ribs.

"Well, not really. I use it to pay the bills and stuff sometimes." Sumika grimaced at the thought of all her hard-earned money being used to pay the household expenses.

"Hey, at least your money's taking care of you." Trent rubbed the back of his head with his free arm, logging out of the computer with the hand that still grasped the mouse, although his endeavor was somewhat impaired by Sumika's arm.

"You're a great AC Pilot Trent, but sometimes you make a lousy fiance." Sumika stuck her tongue out at him, then walked off to get something to drink. Trent, who was still busy logging out of the computer, didn't quite notice her leaving. Only after he was done did he look around.

"Leigh? Hey, Leigh! Wait for me!" Trent quickly disentangled himself from the keyboard, and ran after his fiance, Sumika, known outside of Global Cortex as Leigh Nodre.

----------------------

Later that evening, a car pulled up to a moderately sized house. A tall, brown haired man got out of it first, and walked over to the other side, opening the door for a shorter, raven tressed woman. The woman smiled and took his hand, then they both walked to the house.

"So," Trent was the first to speak. "Did you like the movie?"

"Well... It was pretty good. But all that part with the Men in Black having sex with everything was really strange."

"Hey, it was a pre-Great Destruction movie, what'd you expect?"

"Well, certainly not that." Leigh leaned on Trent even more, and the taller man smiled as he unlocked the door to the house and they both walked in, taking their shoes off in the foyer. Both pairs of their feet clad only in socks, they walked into the living room, and sat down next to each other on the couch, facing each other and wrapping an arm around the other's shoulder.

"Well well, what shall we do for the rest of the night?"

"Honestly, I have no idea. I'd rather not go anywhere though."

"Ah..." Trent stretched and yawned. "That's fine. In all honesty, I'd like to go to bed."

"Me too love." Having reached a consensus, both Ravens walked upstairs and changed into their nightclothes while discussing the events of the day casually, which was pretty much just the results of the last mission they'd both undertaken. A short while later they both snuggled in beside each other. Trent rolled over so his arms slid around Leigh's shoulders.

"I love you." Trent spoke first.

"I love you too." Leigh reached over and turned out the light, plunging them both into darkness.

* * *

Author Notes: Didn't really like the way that ended. Oh well, im not very good at writing married and engaged couples. Sorry that it's kind of short too.

No thanks to my lazy friend. (CoughFIAOblivionCough) I can't get started on chapter 6, OR 7. But I'm working on 8. Hopefully I'll be able to get 6 posted tomorrow (Assuming he cooperates of course.)

No offense FIA. Heheheh.

* * *

To the readers:

Bloodykitsune - Well, first of all, im keeping my promise to update faster than the other AC authors. (5x score on that! I dont think any of them have managed 5 consecutive daily updates). Second, what do you mean Omega can't think straight? He's one of the straightest thinking people I know... well... kinda.... sorta.... as sad as that sounds.


	6. Arc 1: The Doomed Defense

Author Notes: Sorry about not updating last night. Due to a mixup when I decided to add a new character (Featured here) part 6, which I have about 15 complete, became part 7, and part 8, which was about 10 complete, became part 9. Very confusing mixup. Adding to the above situation, I managed to finally get a copy of Nexus last night. So far, it's proving to be a good game. But I don't think ill twist the plot of Nexus into here. At least not until near the end anyways.

And since I bothered to include notes at the start of the chapter - I think I'll do a disclaimer as well.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the AC games, and i also don't own most of the characters featured here. However, I own the fact that I actually took the time and effort to develop a personality for them. But I suppose Agetec will say that since the characters are thiers, the personalities are thiers too. (Sigh)

* * *

"Andrew. This is Norman. I've got a mission request from Mirage, but I need some backup for it. Are you up for the job? If you are, take the mission request that I've sent you." 

Andrew stared at the answering machine as it clicked off. _Hmmm. A chance for some action. And I HAVE been a bit short on cash lately. Very well Norman. I accept your proposal._ Andrew quickly found the mission request, and accepted.

----------------------

"Ralph. This is Norman. I've got a mission request from Mirage, but I need some backup for it. Are you up for the job? If you are, take the mission request that I've sent you."

Ralph stared at the answering machine as it clicked off. _Norman. Why are you calling me? What could you possibly not do? Hmmm... Well, It should be entertaining, but hopefully my identity won't be exposed._ Ralph quickly found the mission request, and accepted.

----------------------

As hard as he tried, Brad simply couldn't understand the purpose of the installation he was guarding. But it had obviously been important, as three other ravens had been hired to guard the place as well. _They stuck me with a firepower-crazed maniac, an incompetent sore loser, and an average guy who happens to be a bit more talented than normal, even if his AC IS slow and cumbersome._

"BB, this is Barchetta. Reporting sectors A3 through B8 clear."

Brad sighed as the "average guy who happens to be a bit more talented than normal" reported. "Roger Barchetta. Continue sweeping, check B9 through D5."

"Yes sir. Commencing sweep." Brad smiled slightly. _At least he's respectful._

"Shooting Star here. K6 to L3 clear."

"Roger that." _Loser. _"Continue sweeping. Make sure L4 through M2 are secure." Brad shook his head as the "incompetent sore loser" reported. So far he'd checked the least sectors out of the three.

"Yeah, yeah. Moving out." The A-4 raven grimaced, mentally adding Shooting Star to the list of people he never wanted to work with again.

"Drunkard reporting. Sectors T3 through W7 are green." Brad's eyebrows raised.

_Either he's shitting me, or he's checked more sectors than those other two put together._ Brad made sure that his communication went to only the third Raven. "Drunkard, are you absolutely sure? You have a tank AC."

"Yep, as sure as a cat who's stolen the milk." Brad winced at the statement, which didn't make any sense, and sounded horrible on top of that. The A-4 Raven threw caution out the window with his reply.

"OK, whatever you say. Make sure W8 to Z9 are OK."

"Sure thing boss. Moving out now." Although Drunkard was a "firepower crazed maniac," Brad couldn't help but like the man's attitude, the reckless sportiness was infectious, and Brad found himself grinning.

"I'm picking up something on the scanners in sector L6... it looks like it's an enemy."

"Roger Shooting Star. Target and engage at your discretion." Brad hoped the incompetent raven would be able to hold his own for a few minutes. "Reinforcements on the way."

"Bloody hell!" The bottom feeder replied "I don't need any friggin' reinforcements! I'll trash this guy in two minutes then we can all go out for pizza."

_My guess? He'll be dead in about 5 seconds._ Brad flipped the radio over to Kisaragi channels. "Commander. This is BB, I'm requesting reinforcements to be dispatched to the L6 sector. Tell them to hurry."

"Roger that BB. MT squads A1 through B3 mobilized."

Brad clicked back to the channel he used to address Drunkard and Barchetta privately. "How are you two doing?"

"Nothing so far. Sectors B9 through C7 are clear. Sweeping C8 now."

"Understood Barchetta. Alert me if you detect anything, got it?"

"Sure thing BB. You'll hear from me before the computer." Brad smiled, then turned to Drunkard.

"Drunkard, how are things holding up on your end?"

"Sectors T4 through U2 are clear. Scanning U3 as we speak."

"Excellent. Keep up the good work." Brad grinned this time, his spirits higher, despite the possible problem at Shooting star's end.

"Righty-o. Keeping up the good work." Drunkard's comm cut off with a snap.

_Now, I hope that Shooting Star hasn't been killed yet._

"AC Mystery identified." Brad stared at the computer in shocked disbelief. _Nameless? What the hell is he doing here?!?_

Shooting Star's cocky grin could almost be heard through the transmission. "Door to L6 opening, this guy's meat!"

"Shooting Star. Get kingfisher out of there now! You don't stand a chance against this guy!!"

"HOLY SHIT!!!!" The bottom-feeder had just stepped into a situation far beyond his ability to handle. Brad let out an annoyed snort and slammed the console of his AC.

"Shooting Star! This is a direct order! WITHDRAW RIGHT NOW YOU IDIOT!!" Bursts of machine-gun fire could be heard over the comm, as well as Shooting Star's furious cursing as he attempted to deal with the incredible firepower and mobility of Nameless' AC.

"OH MY JESUS! STUPID WEAPON MALFUNCTION!!!!" Shooting Star's furious scream could be heard as Kingfisher met its end at the hands of Nameless' double machine guns. _A sore loser to the end. _Brad took a few seconds to reflect, then quickly took control of the situation.

"Commander. We have a situation here. Dispatch more reinforcements to sectors L4 and 5. There's a E-30 raven running amok in there."

"Understood BB. B4 through C9 are being mobilized now." Brad nodded grimly at the commander's statement, then turned to Drunkard and Barchetta's channels.

"Drunkard, Barchetta. Listen to me, Nameless is somewhere in this installation. We don't know who or what he's after, so exercise utmost caution."

The festive mood abruptly struck from the mission, only two "Roger."s answered him.

"AC Painkiller identified." Brad almost choked at the computer's sublime proclamation. _Exile??! What the hell is HE doing here too!?!? We're in deep shit. I might be able to defeat one of the, but I can't take out both of them. And I know for a fact that neither Drunkard or Barchetta could take on of those two out. Mystery and Painkiller will just spin circles around them while tearing them to pieces._

"Barchetta reporting, I've detected an enemy in sector D4. It appears to be an AC. I'm preparing to intercept."

"It is an AC. By the name of Painkiller."

"Exile? What would he want here?" Barchetta's voice came over the comm, a ghost of its former self.

"I don't know. But it's our job to take care of these guys. Good luck."

"Roger that. I'll do the best I can." A door opening could be heard, then the staccato roar of a machine gun, with the occasional bellows of a grenade launcher mixed in.

Brad said a silent prayer for the Raven, then turned his attention to other issues.

"Drunkard. What's your status?"

"I think there's an enemy AC in Z9. I'm trying to verify that now."

"Commander." Brad radioed the Kisaragi officer in charge of the operation. "What's the status on the squads sent to intercept Mystery?"

"Bad. They're taking heavy losses and Nameless doesn't show any signs of slowing down."

Brad sighed. "I see." turning back to Drunkard, he tried to assess the situation again. "Drunkard, what's your status?"

"I'm in sector Z8 now. Approaching Z9." Drunkard sounded a bit nervous, rightfully so when two of Cortex's best pilots were slaughtering his allies.

"Barchetta here." The roar of the machine gun and bellow of grenades were replaced with warnings going out of control in the background. "He got me good. I can't fight anymore." Brad frowned, then nodded as if the other Raven could see him. "Get him for me, alright BB?" The A-4 Raven didn't get a chance to reply as Karma's systems failed from the incredible amounts of abuse heaped upon the AC.

_Damn you Exile. I'll see that you pay for this._ "Mystery has managed to bypass our defenses, and is moving into sector S3 now!" The commander's voice pulled Brad out of his thoughts. The door to the room opened, and a battered Mystery trooped into the room. Brad flipped his radio so it transmitted to everyone.

"I don't like you very much. But I'll make sure you're avenged... Shooting Star."

----------------------

Drunkard was a bit nervous. As his AC trundled slowly through sector Z8, he was on the lookout for another Raven. He was hoping that the two Ace pilots had brought a rookie with them, as cannon fodder or something.

"I don't like you very much. But I'll make sure you're avenged... Shooting Star."

Drunkard frowned as he heard that. With BB distracted he would have to identify the enemy machine himself, and as his computers weren't tied into the network that ran throughout the base, he would have to be in the same room to find out what, or who he was up against. As he reached the door leading into Z9, his nervousness was at an all-time high, and he could smell the stink of sweat and fear in his cockpit. _I'm going to need a hot shower after this. _Reckless reached out to the doors and pressed the open button quietly, the door gave a shudder and slid open.

Drunkard grinned as he was faced with a mysterious blue AC. The machine's hand ended in 5 barrels, the trademark of Mirage's FINGER machine gun. A chaingun and grenade launcher were attached to the machine's back, which gave it good firepower in middle range combat. A medium build indicated that it was a middleweight, despite the fact that it had a lightweight core and smaller arms. Drunkard couldn't put his finger on it, but he swore that he'd seen that AC somewhere before.

_It's nothing, probably just some rookie with a lot of money. Those ARE expensive parts after all._

"AC Godhand identified."

Drunkard's throat abruptly went dry. Now he knew where he'd seen that AC before. It belonged to the A-1 Raven, Omega.

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AC Analysis: Godhand-

Description: A medium weight AC. Exceptionally powerful set of back weapons, and it's capable of dishing out serious damage with its right and left hand weapons.

Tech Base: Armored Core 3: Silent Line

Head: CHD-02-TIE

Core: MCL-SS/RAY

Arms: CAL-44-EAS

Legs: MLM-SPINE

Booster: MBT-NI/GULL

FCS: VREX-ST-12

Generator: MGP-VE905  
Radiator: RMR-SA44

Inside: N/A

Extension: N/A

Arm Unit R: MWG-MG/FINGER

Arm Unit L: MLB-MOONLIGHT

Back Unit R: CWC-GNC-15

Back Unit L: CWC-CNG-300

Optional Parts: OP-S-SCR

OP-E/SCR

OP-ECMP

OP-LFCS

OP-L/TRN

Colors:

Uniform Color Scheme

Base; R: 0

G: 100

B: 100

Aid; R: 0

G: 0

B: 0

Optional; R: 0

G: 50

B: 50

Detail; R: 110

G: 120

B: 0

Joint; R: 110

G: 110

B: 110

Other Attributes: The pilot is PLUS, so the AC doesn't need to kneel to use either of its back weapons. It's also capable of shooting waves of MOONLIGHT energy. Even though it uses the OP-INTENSIFY in the game, in here the pilot himself is PLUS, so it uses other optional parts.

Author Notes: I'm trying to make this guy in Nexus (Which I got yesterday in fact), but no PLUS, no dice.

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Drunkard tried to swallow, but found his throat too dry. Suddenly he heard the dry scratch of a comm being activated.

"You are already dead." With the chilling words spoken, Godhand overboosted forwards. Drunkard screamed and charged into combat, all else forgotten.

----------------------

Drunkard's scream momentarily distracted Brad, which gave Mystery a chance to lodge a linear cannon slug in the side of Tyrant. The raven cursed and swung his spread bazooka in line with the pink AC, giving it a point-blank dosage of heavy explosive projectiles. Mystery reeled back, falling on its behind before it had a chance to recover. After that, it never got a chance to recover again, as Brad showered it with rockets and bazooka fire, then slammed his laserblade through the other machine's head, ensuring that it would never fight again. He then dropped Tyrant's spread Bazooka, and picked Mystery up by the legs, flinging the corpse of the AC into a corner. After retrieving his spread bazooka, he radioed the commander again.

"How's containing Exile going?"

The commander sounded haggard and stressed. "It's going very badly. It looks like you're going to have to intercept him as well."

_Damn._

"Drunkard here! This guy is really good! I'm not going to be able to hold out against him for long!" The other Raven's panicked cry came over the comm, and Brad could hear warnings flaring in the background.

"I missed which AC that was. Who are you facing?"

"It's Omega, the #1 ranking Raven in the arena!" Drunkard's comm cut off again, and Brad found his throat dry.

_Nameless... Exile... Omega... why are those three here? This installation must be more important than I first thought._

"Painkillerhas reached sector S3. Prepare to intercept him BB."

"Roger. I'm ready to take him out."

Exile's black and white AC floated through the door, its armor battered and scorched from fighting its way through Barchetta and numerous MTs. Brad grimaced and prepared for combat. _Ready or not, here he comes._ Painkiller boosted forwards, and Brad prepared himself for a fight.

----------------------

_What a sorry excuse for a raven. If this installation was as important as the Mirage rep said it was, they're either under defending it on purpose, or they didn't expect an attack from us._

Omega winced as Nameless screamed, his AC downed by the shower of projectiles from Tyrant. He hoped that his friend was still alive, but couldn't count on it. _So BB is here. Maybe they weren't as ill prepared as I first thought._

As Godhand stepped through the door to Z8, it was greeted by a dozen heavily armed MTs. _No, they were prepared after all. _A spray of chaingun rounds and moonlight waves decimated the ranks of the MTs, leaving only two of them standing. Omega easily finished them off with his FINGER, the burst from the machine gun slicing the first MT in half and blowing the head off of the other MT. _Unfortunately, it wasn't nearly enough._

----------------------

Even though Exile was defeated, his downed AC tossed in a careless fashion to the corner of the room, Brad was starting to get pissed off. He didn't like losing. And he sensed that exactly that was about to happen. He growled in frustration and gripped the controls of the AC a little too tightly, sensing defeat just around the corner. And not liking it one bit.

"All the MTs have been defeated. You're on your own." The commander's voice sounded defeated, and Brad could understand why. _You're not going to beat me you fucker. I don't care how good you are._ The A-4 Raven didn't even bothering to answer the commander, directing all his animosity at the other Raven. _You and your two buddies here may think you're all high and mighty. But you're just some shitheads who happen to have a bit of talent. I'm surprised Ace didn't squash your pathetic ass a few years back._

Brad watched the doors as they opened, revealing a largely undamaged Godhand, although the AC had dropped the FINGER earlier.

"I figured that you'd defeat them." The blue AC's head turned to survey its two fallen comrades.

"Yeah, they didn't put up much of a fight." Brad looked at his gague, Tyrant still had 3836 AP left. _It should be enough to defeat this pathetic fucker._

"Nevertheless, I can tell your AC is damaged. They're not incompetent pilots."

"No. But you are. And I'll make sure you don't walk away from this place alive." Brad's voice dripped with venom, his annoyance at being forced onto the losing side of the fight slowly taking him over.

"So be it. Let's fight." Omega's AC boosted forwards, the chaingun on its shoulder spewing a stream of rounds at Tyrant, which quickly strafed to the left, releasing a grenade shot that Godhand easily dodged. Brad growled in frustration and ground his teeth.

Omega sighed as the poorly executed grenade shot flew by him. He steeled himself for the next onslaught as Tyrant unleashed a flurry of rockets and bazooka shots. Although some hits managed to blast chunks of armor off Godhand, he was still in good shape for a fight. The blue AC closed in on its quarry, chaingun blazing away. Tyrant took a few more rounds, but was still able to fight, which it proved as its green blade blazed to life and slashed at Godhand, who had closed hoping for a chance to use the MOONLIGHT.

The green blade sliced through empty space. Godhand boosted backwards to the other side of the room as his chaingun spat another series of rounds, inflicting minor damage on BB's AC. Brad glanced at the gague again. _Still 2705 AP left. Enough to kill this bastard._ He quickly triggered a blade wave, the 2551 model blade on his arm spewing a disc of green energy at Omega's AC, which sliced it in half with the moonlight. Brad growled again and ground his teeth, letting out a wordless shout of fury as a grenade from Godhand blew his AC back a few steps. Tyrant quickly recovered and launched its last spread bazooka shot at its tormentor, throwing the useless weapon at the AC.

Omega was caught off guard by the unorthodox attack, and the heavy weapon clanged off Godhand's head, denting the appendage and knocking the machine over. Omega quickly wrestled the blue AC to its feet, and started spitting chaingun rounds at the other AC again, strafing left and right to avoid the bursts of grenade fire cast at him.

Brad was far beyond pissed now. He was downright infuriated. Despite everything he had tried, Omega was showing him that he was a superior pilot in every way. And brad didn't like that at all. As he ran out of rockets, the rocket launcher on his back was the next projectile that joined the barrage, although it missed horribly. The grenade launcher was running low on ammo, but Brad kept shooting anyways, convinced that he'd hit Omega sometime soon if only he kept shooting. However, the grenade launcher ran out of ammo, and he hadn't scored one hit. As it ejected, Tyrant wrapped both its hands around the weapon, then overboosted over to Godhand, who simply waited for it knowingly.

As the massive grenade launcher was swung like a bat, Omega did what came naturally to him, he blocked with the moonlight. The grenade launcher was shorn in half by the force of its own impact, and the first piece flew off harmlessly, the second still firmly clenched in Tyrant's hands. The reverse jointed AC looked at it stupidly for a moment, then hurled it at Godhand and boosted over to Mystery's corpse, ripping off the FINGER and sticking its own hand into the weapon, Godhand in hot pursuit.

Tyrant twisted around and unleashed a near-point-blank burst of machine gun fire into Godhand's chest. The smaller AC staggered back, then aimed its grenade launcher at the bigger AC and fired, the weapon blowing Tyrant's right arm off and forcing it to stagger back. Brad shouted wordlessly again before kicking his AC into overboost, the blade shining out of his left arm and scything down towards Godhand.

Omega sighed as the furious warrior's AC streaked towards him. _Time to end this pointless charade._ The moonlight flashed in a burning arc, severing Tyrant's legs as Godhand nimbly stepped to the right. Omega ignored BB's scream of fury as the two parts of his AC bid each other a fond farewell and crashed into the other wall.

"Nameless. Exile. Are you guys ok?"

"Yeah... but I'll need some aspirin after this one." Nameless groaned from what was left of Mystery.

There was no response from Painkiller, but the bio readings were still there. Omega knew what that meant; Exile had been knocked out.

"Well, let's get this show over with. I'm proceeding to sector S1 now." Omega's AC stepped forwards, calmly walking towards the last sector.

"Please. We'll buy you off. Whatever Mirage is paying you, we'll double it." The only reply to the commander's desperate begging was Omega's laugh.

"Please, spare me the indignity of having to listen to your whining." The indigo-haired raven snorted before snapping off the comm. _Irritating bastard._ As the doors to the final sector opened, Omega was greeted with his prize.

A huge gray MT sat in a scaffold in front of him, obviously not fully complete. Omega smiled as he beheld the huge weapon before him. "So this is what Mirage suspected was being built here. I see. Their suspicions were correct." The grenade launcher popped into action again, and Omega set about making sure the gray MT would never fly.

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AC Analysis: Tyrant-

Tech Base: Armored Core 3

Armored Core 3 – Arena Rank 2

Author Notes: BB is now Rank 4. Omega holds the #1 spot, Ace is #2 and Mobius is #3. That leaves Mr. BB holding spot #4. No changes have been made to his AC. It's the same Tyrant we all know and love.

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AC Analysis: Painkiller-

Tech Base: Armored Core 3

Armored Core 3 – Bottom of the Arena

Author Notes: No changes made.

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AC Analysis: Mystery-

Tech Base: Armored Core 3: Silent Line

Armored Core 3: Silent Line – Bottom of the Arena

Author Notes: No changes made. And if you're wondering why I didn't make one of these for Barchetta, Drunkard and Shooting star, it's because more likely than not they won't make another appearance. Besides, the focus of the chapter wasn't on them.

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about ten minutes later, a blue AC was seen leaving the entrance to the Kisaragi base, dragging the remnants of a pink humanoid and black floating AC behind it.

----------------------

Brad surveyed Tyrant. More accurately-- what was **left** of Tyrant. Not only had he tossed away all his weaponry to defeat Omega, but the A1 Raven had literally sliced his AC in half, and it was a very expensive job to get damaged legs attached to a damaged core, but not quite as expensive as having to buy a completely new AC. All his anger having been burned out of him by the fight, Brad quietly sighed, wishing that he'd been paired with more competent Ravens. _I would have even welcomed that pompous ass Corpse Maker, or that bastard Mobius, as long as it meant victory._

The A-4 Raven sighed again and looked at the repair bill, quietly thanking the gods above that he had the forethought to save up in case of something like this. Repairs for Tyrant were estimated to be about 1,000,000 credits, but his many victories in the arena had brought him much more money. Despite all this, he lived alone in a rather modest house.

_I could have had everything my family thought they had a divine right to. But they're gone, and I, for one, hope that I never see them again._ Despite the thoughts of his family threatening to drag him down, Brad still kept upbeat, thinking about the results of the mission. _Even though Omega defeated me, I still managed to dent his AC pretty good, and that's AFTER Exile and Nameless had their turn at me._ Brad smiled, feeling happier now that he saw the victory within the defeat. _The corporations will recognize me for this._ He grinned and turned to his AC, only to have the YIV head's many eyes stare back at him impassively. After thinking for a few minutes, Brad decided that he'd been at the bay long enough, and returned home.

----------------------

Although he was the A-4 Raven, and had a considerable fortune in his hands, Brad Baker's home was nothing to brag about. A small, double floor house, it had everything that he needed. A bathroom, bedroom, kitchen and living room. If a guest happened to be staying for the night, well, the couch unfolded into a bed.

As he stepped into the house and closed the door, he removed his shoes in the foyer and walked over to the couch, plopping himself down on it and activating the TV. Afterwards, he idly channel surfed, looking through various news reports. Nothings_ on TV. I would call some of my friends, but it's kind of late now. Besides, _A loud yawn interrupted his train of thoughts. _I'm starting to get tired. I should go to bed._ As he looked around his house, Brad was left thinking that he lacked something essential. Human companionship. Although he loved the novelty of being alone after being forced to live with others for so long. the place now felt so empty that it depressed him, and he spent as little time at home as possible. Besides, his home reminded him of something he didn't have. A family.

As he got into bed, he stared at the ceiling for a few seconds, then turned out the light. As he was plunged into the darkness, he couldn't help but think one thing.

_It's getting kind of lonely here._

* * *

Author Notes - Poor BB. I feel kind of sorry for him, even if he is a raging hothead in an AC. 

I found some minor errors in an earlier version of this chapter, so I fixed them (hopefully) and reposted it. Chapter 7 is underway now.

Also, my friend gave me another idea for an Armored Core fiction, so look out for it in the near future.


	7. Arc 1 Finale: Meetings

_I don't own Kal, Dylan or Eddy, FIAOblivion does. Thanks for the help buddy. (Grins)_

Don't own armored core either. I wish I did though (Cries)

* * *

"Well..." Lysander began, after finishing taking a drink. "It all began about two years ago..."

----------------------

"What? You never told me I'd have consorts for this mission!!" Lysander growled into the comm, clenching his fist and slamming it down on the controls.

"Calm down. We assure you that they're both competent pilots and will in no way interfere with the operation." The Mirage representative's calm reply did nothing to assuage Lysander's anger. Indeed, it only fueled it more as the orange-haired raven growled again and clenched his fist.

"Well..." The comm cut off with a snap, leaving Lysander no outlet for his comments, so he did the only thing he could. Talked to the computer with some of the most vile language that could be spoken in English. After he finished, he took the time to wonder about his fellow pilots. _I wonder what they're going to be like..._

"ACs Gorgon and Flamestreak identified."

_Guess those are them. Hmm... _Lysander's eyes scrolled over the computer readout of the two ACs, taking in all the information he needed in a glance. _Not bad, I guess the rep was right._

The first AC, Gorgon, was a huge, black colored tank AC. Heavy tank legs with heavy arms, a heavy core, and armor side extensions gave a viewer no doubt that the AC could withstand tremendous punishment. The MIRROR attached to the left arm did nothing to detract from that image. Armed to the teeth with grenade launchers and a grenade rifle, the first AC was the epitome of tank-types, a machine that could both take and dish out tremendous damage.

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AC Analysis: Gorgon-

Description: A heavily armed and armored Tank AC, the machine is capable of both withstanding and dealing incredible damage. Has some accuracy and mobility problems.

Tech Base: Armored Core 3: Silent Line

Head: MHD-MX/BEE

Core: CCH-OV-IKS

Arms: MAH-SS/CASK

Legs: CLC-D3TA

Booster: N/A

FCS: AOX-ANA

Generator: CGP-ROZ  
Radiator: RGI-KD99

Inside: N/A

Extension: KES-AEGIS

Arm Unit R: CWGG-GR-12

Arm Unit L: KES-ES/MIRROR

Back Unit R: CWC-GNS-15

Back Unit L: CWC-GNS-15

Optional Parts: OP-S-SCR

OP-E/SCR

OP-ECMP

OP-TQ/ESE

Colors:

Sample colors – Night Black

Other Attributes: The pilot is not PLUS, but that doesn't really affect unit performance, because it wouldn't have to kneel to use cannons anyways.

Author Notes: This thing is designed to take and dish out pain. Tough to beat. It wasted my friend's AC in about 4 or 5 shots.

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Flamestreak was a totally different AC. Not nearly as big or powerful as its companion, it wielded a machine gun and smaller laserblade. The lack of back weapons was explained by the lightweight legs of the machine, which seemed like they'd snap under the weight of the AC's body. Its name was matched by its colors, which were bright and fiery reds and oranges.

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AC Analysis: Flamestreak-

Description: A lightweight, speedy AC. Capable of dodging enemy fire easily, and has plenty of ammo, but lacks power.

Tech Base: Armored Core 3: Silent Line

Head: CHD-09-OXI

Core: CCL-01-NER

Arms: CAL-44-EAS

Legs: CCL-HUESO

Booster: CBT-01-UN8

FCS: PLS-ROA

Generator: MGP-VE905  
Radiator: RIX-CR10

Inside: N/A

Extension: N/A

Arm Unit R: MWG-MG/1000

Arm Unit L: CLB-LS-2551

Back Unit R: N/A

Back Unit L: N/A

Optional Parts: OP-S-SCR

OP-E/SCR

OP-S/STAB

OP-ECMP

OP-LFCS

OP-M/AW

Colors:

Uniform Color Scheme

Base; R: 200

G: 0

B: 0

Aid; R: 200

G: 40

B: 0

Optional; R: 200

G: 80

B: 0

Detail; R: 200

G: 120

B: 0

Joint; R: 200

G: 160

B: 0

Other Attributes: The pilot is also not PLUS, but that doesn't really affect unit performance, it doesn't have cannons that it needs to kneel to use.

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"Greetings fellow Ravens." Lysander was the first to speak, mentally kicking himself for not sounding lame.

"So you're the guy that Mirage is sattling us with." Obviously female, the first voice sounded annoyed, as if Lysander were some sort of unwelcome burden that was to be shed as quickly as possible.

"Well, who do I have the pleasure of addressing?" Lysander glared at the speakers. _Just my luck. The first time I get stuck with consorts that aren't of MY choosing, and they already hate me. I'd better stay clear of this one. _Lysander mentally shuffled the first woman off to the side as someone he didn't want to associate with.

"You're speaking to Firecracker." The voice came over again, condescending and haughty. Lysander couldn't help but grimace. _Great, she's one of those girls with an overly huge ego. I'd better not punch a hole in it or I'm in trouble. Big, big trouble._

"This is Aura. Reporting for duty as ordered." A surprisingly gentle voice came from the other AC, which Lysander figured came from Gorgon. Her voice was soft and husky, a nice change from the grating voice that had assaulted his ears a few moments ago. _I wonder what she's like. Probably nicer than her companion._

"Excellent. I see you three are getting along nicely." The Mirage representative's voice did nothing to alleviate Lysander's irritation, indeed, the obviously incorrect statement only served to further inflame the orange-haired raven. _This isn't going to be a pleasant mission. _Lysander switched off the comm, then started banging his head against the controls.

----------------------

Three minutes and a minor headache later, the trio of ACs were picked up by two transport helicopters. As the massive transport vehicles closed on their destinations, Lysander went over the details of the mission one more time in his head. _Ok. Sounds easy enough. Mirage's new base got invaded by crest forces, and they need us to get rid of them. Enemies consist of heavy and medium MTs. Not exactly your light skirmishing force. Alright, should be a simple, straightforward assignment._ Lysander checked over Endgame's KARASAWA to make sure the weapon was in working condition. The large gray and green AC also had double missile launchers on its back, with an extension for additional firepower. A laserblade rounded out the Reverse join unit's weaponry and made sure that it would have a backup weapon should its ammo run out.

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AC Analysis: Endgame-

Description: Middleweight AC built for versatility. A variety of weapons enable it to engage many different types of targets with success. Best used for medium range fighting. The missile extensions can provide additional firepower at long range.

Tech Base: Armored Core 3

Head: CHD-07-VEN

Core: CCL-01-NER

Arms: CAM-11-SOL

Legs: MLB-MX/004

Booster: CBT-FLEET

FCS: VREX-ST-12

Generator: CGP-ROZ  
Radiator: RMR-SA44

Inside: N/A

Extension: MWEM-R/24

Arm Unit R: MWG-KARASAWA

Arm Unit L: CLB-LS-2551

Back Unit R: CWM-S40-1

Back Unit L: CWM-S40-1

Optional Parts: OP-S-SCR

OP-E/SCR

OP-SP/E

OP-E/RTE

OP-TQ/CE

OP-R/INIA

Colors:

Uniform Color Scheme

Base; R: 35

G: 35

B: 35

Aid; R: 0

G: 200

B: 0

Optional; R: 0

G: 0

B: 0

Detail; R: 0

G: 0

B: 0

Joint; R: 100

G: 100

B: 100

Other Attributes: The pilot is not PLUS. You know the rest.

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As the pair of helicopters approached the installation, the three pilots went over some last minute preparations for the mission. Making sure their ACs were ok, weapons were online, systems checked out. Nobody wanted to look like a fool in front of the other. None so more than Firecracker, who would end up looking like a real idiot if she messed up in front of the other Raven, who she'd behaved in a condescending manner towards earlier.

"We've reached the target. Dropping ACs."

Lysander blinked once as Endgame crashed to the ground, its heavy legs bending at the knees to absorb the shock. The machine's radar filled up with contacts as it identified the various crest forces scattered around the base. _Maybe this won't be so easy after all. I hope those other two are ready._ A loud hissing noise startled him, and he looked over to see that Firecracker had already boosted off and was massacring the MTs with its machine gun. _I hope she knows what she's doing, if she loses her rhythm those things will slaughter her. _Gorgon had gone off in another direction, and the huge tank was harassing the MTs with its grenade rifle, its MIRROR shining as it deflected incoming rounds.

_Well, looks like I'd better get started. I don't want Ms. Firecracker to think worse of me than she already does._ Lysander thought sarcastically, walking Endgame towards the first MT. As the unit identified him as a threat and started turning towards him, he blasted it with the KARASAWA, ripping its arm off. The machine stumbled, the loss of its arm upsetting its balance. However, Lysander didn't give it a chance to recover, as the laserblade of Endgame sliced the machine in half. _Easy meat._

The next MT figured out he was a threat much quicker than the first, and started launching missiles and laser fire in his direction. The AC-like unit strafed around him as it unleashed its payload, and Lysander returned the favor, the MT's arms and legs being surgically picked off by the huge laser rifle. The third MT that chose to attack him suffered a similar fate, its head being blown off by the huge rifle. Lysander then hit the button for overboost and streaked off to find more targets.

A depleted capacitor later, he found something that he didn't expect to see at all. Flamestreak was surrounded by multiple MTs, the light AC getting battered from all sides by laser and missile fire. Gorgon was off somewhere else, so the first AC didn't have any support. Lysander quickly set to work saving his comrade, Endgame's laserblade flashing out to sever the first MT's right arm, which cost it the laser rifle it held there. A KARASAWA charge was more than enough to destroy the second, the laser round coring through the back and blowing the MT into pieces. Flamestreak managed to finish off the other two MTs by itself, killing one with the machine gun while using the blade on its left arm to finish off the other one.

"A raven of your skill should know better than to get hemmed in by MTs like that." Lysander carefully chose his words as he baited the other pilot, fully expecting a snappy response, or to get yelled at. Instead the AC just turned around and boosted off to find other targets, but he could tell that his words had probably annoyed the pilot. _I don't expect her to like me very much, but that doesn't really matter. All that matters is that we can work together to achieve the objective._

As the MTs continued to thin out, all three ACs took more and more damage as a few lucky hits here and there made it through. The pilots were altogether quite unprepared when the surprise came.

"Enemy AC detected."

"So." The Pilot's arrogant voice boomed, supremely confident that he would win. "These must be the three that Crest told me about."

Lysander stared at the new arrival. It wasn't an AC registered with Global cortex, he could tell that much. It appeared to be a medium unit, with a grenade rifle, shield, and double triple missile launchers. _That guy must be overweight or something. I don't think there are any legs that can hold as much weight as he's putting on them._

The three ravens took different approaches and directions to fighting the new arrival. Gorgon drove straight up the middle, its grenade launchers blazing away. Flamestreak took the right, the light AC going for a long burst with its machine gun. Endgame strafed to the left, its KARASAWA spitting huge globs of blue energy at the enemy. The enemy AC simply jumped while activating its shield, the few rounds that it hit doing minimal damage to it.

"This is going to be even easier than I expected." The enemy pilot's arrogant voice came over again, setting Lysander's teeth on edge. _I want to teach that guy a lesson. Really, really badly._ The other two ACs renewed their drive to kill the mysterious AC that was attacking them, but Endgame activated its boosters and jumped backwards. Lysander toggled over to his "slingshot" missile launchers, and activated his extensions. As his machine quickly locked on to the other machine, he let loose a barrage of three missiles. The other AC tried to dodge them, but one caught it on the leg, blasting part of the knee off.

As the machine crashed to the ground, the abrupt jar disrupting the pilot, the other two cores pounced on it, showering it with machine gun and grenade rounds. Despite taking immense damage, the AC still managed to get up, and it pointed its grenade rifle directly at Gorgon.

Lysander quickly recognized that Aura would be killed if the grenade rifle discharged. Knowing he only had seconds to spare, he activated the overboost function and zoomed off towards the endangered AC.

It didn't look like Aura knew that she was in danger, as her AC kept pelting the damaged unit with grenades. She also didn't know that Lysander was on his way, as she let out a cry of surprise when his AC hit hers with a resounding clang, forcing the huge tank out of the way just as the grenade rifle discharged. The weapon hit Endgame's shoulder, cutting off the AC's right arm at the shoulder. As his KARASAWA dropped away, Lysander turned the black and green AC to face the mysterious one who had just assaulted the ravens.

"Easier than you expected huh?" Lysander didn't even give the pilot a chance to answer as he sliced the core in half, killing the other man instantly.

"You're a bloodthirsty one aren't you?" Firecracker's voice came over the radio again, and this time Lysander wasn't in the mood to deal with her.

"No. I only killed him because he's a pompous ass and threatened the life of you two. Now let's wait for the transport, there's nothing else to do here."

----------------------

Lysander hummed out a rather obscure tune as he sat down, lazily sprawling out in one of the lounges chairs. Two other ravens were playing a game of pool in distance, talking about something that he had nothing to do with, and didn't care about in the least. The only thing that concerned him was meeting with the other two pilots he had worked with. Although some Ravens chose to just go home right after the mission's end, and to hell with the others, he preferred to take a more considerate approach, that is to say, to make sure the other ravens were ok. Although some would look down upon this practice as foolish, many ravens appreciated the thought, especially the female ones.

_I hope they're both ok. They did take some damage during the attack, and they might have received injuries I was unaware of. It would be a shame for them to get injured at this point._ The raven's only reaction to the door opening on the other side of the room was to open one eye and calmly survey the new arrivals.

_Well, well, what have we here? _The first pilot had flaming red hair, which fell down to her neck. Although Lysander was sure she had a nice figure, the loose, baggy clothing she wore effectively hid it, and Lysander was moderately relieved at that. _Well, at least I won't be tempted to stare. Not that I can't resist that particular temptation._

Although the second raven was taller, she seemed to be trying to hide behind the first one. Even though she was also wearing baggy clothes, it couldn't quite cover up the fact that her breasts were larger than usual. Lysander found himself staring before he quickly blinked the temptation away, forcing his gaze upwards towards her face. _Blue hair and brown eyes. Odd combination. I wonder if she dyed her hair. _Her hair was tied back in a long ponytail, and the bangs framed her face rather nicely. _She's quite a looker I wonder if she's Firecracker. _He briefly recalled an old friend complaining about how "the beautiful ones were always the bitchiest." _Better snap out of that. That attitude's not going to help you with first impressions. Or making friends. Or anything else for that matter._ Lysander ran a hand through his hair, thought positive thoughts, then went to meet the two women who had just walked in the door.

----------------------

"Firecracker and Aura I presume?"

Firecracker, better known as Faye Jolhin, looked at the man who approached her and her friend. She gave him a disdainful look. _Who the hell is this guy? Whys he approaching us like this?_

The man who had approached them was of a lean, but muscular build. Short orange hair and green eyes gave her an insuppressible mental image of a carrot. The guy wore a baggy T-shirt that read "My average mental velocity throughout the day is 0" and equally baggy pants. _He looks like a bum. Can this guy really be a raven?_ "Yeah. I'm Firecracker, and," she gestured to her friend, who was still trying to hide behind her. "That's Aura."

"Oh, hey. I'm Ascendency. Nice to meet you both."

_What an idiot. I can't believe this guy is actually a raven. _Faye mustered up her best "I'm not in a very good mood so go away and leave me alone" tone of voice. "Yeah, nice to meet you too."

"It's nice to meet you too." Faye turned around to find her friend talking to the other guy. _She's talking louder than usual. I hope she's not taking a liking to him._

"Well." The male raven grinned, then held out his hand. "Name's Lysander. Lysander Kiljorn. 'since to meet you both."

Faye half-glared at Lysander before reaching out and shaking his hand cautiously. "Faye Jolhin. Nice to meet you too." _He'd better not be eye-feeling me, or I'm going to kill him._

"My name is Kenja Hector. It's nice to meet you Lysander." Faye watched as Lysander's eye twitched, the man obviously being surprised by the strength of Kenja's grip. _Looks like he's not used to a woman that strong. What a dense bastard._ However, what Kenja did next surprised both of the other Ravens.

----------------------

Kenja stepped forward gracefully, filling Lysander's vision as her arms stretched out, the wrapped around his arms and chest, squeezing him in a tight embrace. He could feel his cheeks heating up as their bodies pressed together. _Oh man, she's got some muscle on her. _Too late, he clumsily ordered his arms to wrap around her lower back, resulting in a somewhat awkward embrace from his end. Kenja's strong arms almost squeezed the breath out of his lungs as she squeezed him even more tightly. _Wow. She's stronger than most **men** I've met. _As her cheek pressed against his, he could feel that hers were just about as warm as his felt right now.

"Thanks for saving my life out there." Her breath tickled his ear, and her voice was like music to his soul. As he felt a genuine smile spread across his face, he gave her a slight squeeze and whispered back.

"You're welcome."

As the blue-haired beauty disentangled herself from his arms, she joined her friend, who had since walked over to the other side of the room. As she was about to leave the room, she winked at him and blew him a kiss. Lysander could only smile weakly and collapse on the couch, his knees feeling a bit rubbery at the moment. _Luck was indeed on my side today..._

----------------------

"And so, that was how me, Faye, and Kenja met." Lysander took another drink of beer, then cleared his throat. "Of course, that's not where the story ends."

"So Faye crushed your hand and Kenja strangled you? Nice." Kal said with a smile.

"Errr..." Lysander scratched his head. "The story doesn't exactly end there..."

"Well, I mean for your first meeting." Kal replied, still smiling.

"She didn't exactly crush my hand. And Kenja certainly surprised me... but no lasting damage."

"And from there on out it was everlasting love... awwwwww..." Eddy cut in with a sarcastically cute voice.

Dylan laughed and looked over at Eddy. "Sounds like Kal and Sophie huh?"

Eddy looked thoughtful for a moment, which sent a shiver down the other 3 men's spines. "Not really." His look dissolved into a laugh, and he didn't notice the silent looks of relief that passed between the three other men. "Kal harassed her."

Kal pretended not to hear as he looked back over at Lysander. "Hey, let Sandy talk here, I wanna hear the rest of his story."

"Well, that wasn't the first time we worked together of course, as the weeks, then months, went by, we worked together more and more. I saved their lives, they saved mine, it was a 'you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours' kind of thing. However, little did I know that our comfortable little arrangement would be drastically changed..."

"How so?" Kal leaned forward, interested.

"Well, let me tell you, and you'll find out."

----------------------

"Well, one down, 5 billion or so to go." Faye snarled as her machine gun eviscerated an MT, blasting its internal parts all over the street.

"We can beat them, we just have to keep fighting." Kenja's AC slaughtered another MT with its grenade rifle.

"Easy for you to say, you can kill them in one hit AND take much more damage than me." Faye narrowly dodged a series of laser bursts from the assembled MTs.

"It doesn't matter, just keep fighting. Crest said they were sending reinforcements." Another spread of grenades took down a few more MTs, but even more trooped up to take their fallen comrade's place.

"If they're any later, the reinforcements might be doing the fighting instead of us." Flamestreak ducked under another barrage of laser fire, and Faye swapped ammunition in earnest, spraying the ranks with machine gun fire.

"ACs Endgame, Wakeup and Double Wing detected."

Faye's eyebrow shot up. _Lysander's here? That's good. But I don't know about those other two. They sound like bottom feeders._

"Ascendency here. What's the situation?" Endgame quickly looked around, then charged right into the fray, not waiting for a report.

"Bad. Most of the homes we were assigned to protect were destroyed by the fires, and even more are being burned." The reply came from Gorgon, off to the left.

"Understood." Wakeup and Double Wing were taking a more conservative approach to the fight, the quadruped and medium biped staying on the outskirts and showering the MTs with rifle and handgun fire.

Despite the five AC's combined firepower, the ranks of the MT's didn't thin out. "There are too many of them!" Double Wing's pilot finally cried in a panic.

"Stuff it Little Bear. We were assigned to be reinforcements, that means we get in, kill stuff, and help out the ravens who were already fighting. If you couldn't handle it, why the heck did you take the job?" Faye was grateful for Lysander's intervention. It was much gentler than what she would have said. _I swear, if I ever see that whiner face to face..._

"Echo Head here. My handgun's running out of ammo, are there any supply trucks out here?"

"Negative." Faye jumped on the other pilot before Lysander could reply. "Use your other weapons."

As most of the MTs fell to the combined firepower of Kenja's grenades and Lysander's laser rifle, the ranks finally began to thin out. It was then that the unwelcome news came.

"AC Cobra identified."

"Don't worry about it too much." Lysander's voice reassured the other Ravens. "He won't be able to take on all five of us."

Laughter replied him over the five comms. "I wouldn't count on that..." the Red Quadruped AC emerged from the distance, twin flamethrowers grasped in its hands. A rocket launcher and linear gun rounded out its armory. The red AC switched to the former, shooting a round at Double Wing. The Linear slug hit the machine in the hips, blasting through it and scattering armor fragments all over the ground. Double Wing dropped like a puppet with its strings cut, the pilot's scream getting cut off as he was knocked out or killed. "One down, four to go."

"We'll see about that." Endgame strafed right, firing its Laser rifle several times, then dropping the massive weapon as it ran out of ammo. It then started moving left and right erratically, shooting its missiles in short salvos. Cobra was hit by a few shots, which scorched and blistered the armor, but didn't do serious damage to the AC. The missiles peppered its legs and chest, but failed to slow it, much less stop it.

Kenja, Faye, and Echo Head added to the assault. Faye's machine guns tracked a line up the ground, scoring several hits on Cobra, which attempted to strafe right. Kenja's grenades missed by a wide margin, the red AC having slid past them. As it closed with Echo Head, the missile circled around and hit it in the back, making it stumble slightly.

As Cobra closed in on Wakeup, its flamethrowers suddenly came to life, bathing the brown quadruped in searing flames as the EO units in the AXE core popped out of its back and began blazing away at the bottom feeder, the raven screaming as his core was roasted. "Two down." The pilot of cobra spoke again, then laughed.

"Echo! You'll pay for that you bastard!" Lysander's AC launched another volley of missiles, which caught Cobra in the back. As the AC stumbled forward, unprepared for the force of three missiles to the back, A few grenades from Gorgon slammed into its right hind leg, blowing it off at the "knee". The raven shouted as his AC was abruptly crippled, and he attempted to recover, the other three ACs closing in on him. Suddenly, a rifle shot came out of nowhere and blew his head off, and the pilot of the red machine screamed in fury and started shooting streams of flame in random directions, his senses cut off to the rest of the world.

Kenja and Faye both let out wordless shouts of fury as a few blocks of houses were incinerated by the indiscriminate attacks of the red AC. Flamestreak and Gorgon dumped loads of firepower onto it, reducing it to a molten slag. Lysander's missiles didn't help the enemy Raven too much either.

"I don't think anyone could have survived that. And I, for one, say 'good riddance.'" Faye was the first to speak, being the first to recover.

"I'd say." Lysander popped Endgame's head open and climbed out, disregarding the fires as he walked over to the melted remnants of Wakeup. He shook his head sadly, regarding what was left of the AC. "Poor guy, he got traumatized, then this happened."

Flamestreak and Gorgon both walked up to the other AC, and bowed their heads briefly to pay their respects to the slain pilot, then went back to waiting as Lysander walked over to Double Wing and checked on the Pilot. He had passed out again after blowing Cobra's head off, but was still alive.

"Well, I guess most of us are OK. Time to wait for the transport."

----------------------

After checking on Little Bear, who had only received a moderate concussion, Lysander walked back into the lounge to find Faye and Kenja standing there, looking unsure of themselves.

"Hey you two. What's the problem?"

"Well..." Lysander could tell that Faye was struggling with her pride, and surmised that whatever the problem was, it was a pretty big one. Kenja placed her hand on the redhead's shoulder, which caused her to look back at her friend.

"Tell him Faye, it's not like it really matters anyways."

Faye sighed. "Yeah, I suppose you're right. Well, you recall how we were fighting in a neighborhood right?"

"Yeah." Lysander nodded, not quite sure what she was getting at.

"Well, we lived there."

"I see." That told Lysander everything he needed to know. _Well, I'm sure they could live with another Raven, but... _He took a quick look around at the others in the lounge, not liking what he saw. _Maybe I'm not the best choice, but if they live with me, at least I know they won't be abused, and I can make sure they're doing ok. _"You can move in with me."

Faye looked like someone had slapped her with a cold, wet fish. "Move in with **you**?!?" Lysander braced for a slap. "Well..." she sighed. "I suppose, it's not like we have anywhere else to go." Kenja nodded, indicating that she agreed as well.

_This is going to be a nice change after living alone for so long._ "Well, come with me. I'll show you to my place."

----------------------

"You live in a **ship**?!"

"Yeah, it's an AC carrier. Comes in handy for getting Endgame for places that I need to go, plus, it can hold about 5 ACs, so I'm not hurting for space either."

"Well..." Faye sniffed, then walked through the door. "It's better than nothing, I suppose..."

"I think it's pretty interesting." Kenja spoke, causing both other ravens to cast surprised looks at her. "And," she continued. "I think it was pretty nice of Lysander to let us move in."

As Kenja made her way deeper inside the ship, Faye stood there with a betrayed look on her face.

"Hey, c'mon both of you!" Lysander called from up ahead, waving his arm. "I'll give you the grand tour!"

----------------------

"And so..." Lysander took another sip of beer before continuing. "That's how they ended up living with me. I wish I could say the story ended and we all lived happily ever after, but I've walked in on them a few times, thinking that nobody was in the bathroom. Plus, Faye's been in a really pissy mood ever since Flamestreak got badly damaged a while ago. She's been taking turns with Gorgon ever since, but still doesn't quite know how to use that AC as well as Kenja."

"I see." Kal was the first to reply. "What kind of ACs do they use anyways? I figured Kenja used a tank, but what about Faye?"

Eddy drained his mug and got up to get it refilled, they could hear him start to argue with the bartender in the distance.

"Thought I told you that already... Guess I must have missed it. Faye used a light, fast AC. All it had was a laserblade and a machine gun."

"Oh, I see. You might have told me, but I must have missed it, or something like that. Rose uses stuff like that, but, man, that thing can cruise like a floating AC on speed. I'm telling you." Kal leaned back in his chair, taking another drink of beer.

"I see..." Lysander said slowly. _An obvious hyperbole._ "Well, I don't know about you guys, but It's getting kind of late and-- huh? What the heck?" Lysander's hands reached down as he started feeling around his pants for something.

"Uhh... Dude... are you jerking off in a bar without strippers? Or did you wet yourself?" Kal asked him, more than a little weirded out.

"Hold on, I think I got it." Lysander replied with his hands jammed deep in the insides of his pants, feeling around for something.

"Dude... get your hands out of your pants, those ugly chicks are looking..." Kal glanced in the direction of some other women uneasily, noticing that they were all staring at Lysander and giggling.

"Ha! Found it!" Lysander pulled a black object about the size of a tape recorder out of his pants, then set it down on the table.

"What the hell is that thing?!?!" Kal spat, disgusted.

Lysander balled his hand into a fist, then smashed the device as hard as he could with it. "It's a bug. Dunno how they slipped it on me. Might want to check yourself for one too."

Kal gave himself a quick search, but didn't find anything. "Who bugged you, Faye?"

"Yep. They probably had a good laugh about all those pranks we talked about." Lysander replied gloomily.

Kal stared at Lysander, Dylan and Eddy, who had since come back from the bar. He wore a deeply worried expression on his face. "Guys? Remember that thing I told you about Sophie and when she cried? I'm so screwed..."

----------------------

"What the hell is that thing?!?!" was followed by an audible crunching as the bug was smashed. Faye frowned, then snapped her fingers.

"Aww, it was just getting good too."

Sophie just sat there, completely out of it. Faye waved her hand in front of Sophie's face a few times.

"Hello, earth to Sophie." Faye poked her in the nose a few times.

Sophie started shook her head quickly. "What?"

"Jeez. You missed the whole thing, didn't you?"

"No. I just kind of zoned out after the stripper thing. That's a normal conversation around here." Sophie replied.

"So you live with three perverts? I don't know whether to admire you or call you an idiot." Faye sounded impressed and condescending at the same time.

Sophie laughed slightly. "Yeah well I guess you can do both."

"Nah. It's alright, Sandy boy can be a pervert too sometimes." Faye was interrupted by Kenja, who snored gently. "He's walked in on me more times than I can count."

"Same here. Just this morning Kal walked in on me." Sophie sighed.

"Do you like him?"

"Like that pervert? Why would you ask?" Faye had expected some blurted out response, but Sophie's pointed reply caught her off guard.

"I don't know... it's just that sometimes I think of Lysander and..." Faye trailed off, then shook her head, but her slight blush betrayed her. "Nevermind... it's just a stupid question."

Sophie smiled wickedly, knowing that her plan had worked. Faye gave her a strange look, then continued. "Well, the guys should be coming back. Want to make it sound like they missed some 'action'?" Sophie thought for a second, then smiled.

"Yeah, it'd be nice to pull a prank on them for a change. What do you have in mind?"

"Well... it goes like this..." Faye leaned over and began whispering to Sophie.

----------------------

"Well, that was certainly fun. We should do stuff like this more often." Lysander was the first to speak as the door to the _Vergos_ opened.

Kal, Eddy and Dylan stared in awe at the scene before them. Clothes and underwear were scattered in the hallway, strewn about the floor in a completely chaotic manner. The three tiptoed inside, leaving Lysander standing out there, wondering what was up with them. "Guys?" he looked inside to see them sneaking down the hall, shrugged, and started to walk in, stopping cold as he saw the underwear. _Oh my jeebus._

As they approached the bedroom door, Eddy shushed both the other two. "Shhhh, they might still be at it."

----------------------

As the three approached the door, Sophie leaned over to Faye and whispered in her ear. "They're here. Remember, be convincing." She pulled away and laughed silently, and Faye grinned back.

----------------------

"Wow, that was the most fun I've had in years!" Faye's voice came through the door, and the three male ravens strained to hear her.

"Yeah, really." Sophie's tired voice came next, and the three leaned closer.

"I'd love to do that again sometime, that was really great." There was a ruffle, then kissing sounds. After a short while, the kissing sounds stopped.

"Mmmmm... you taste good."

"Oh really?" More ruffling and some kissing sounds could be heard, and the guys pressed even closer against the door.

Suddenly, the door gave out on them and the three collapsed in a heap on the floor. Faye was sitting on the bed rustling the sheets, and Sophie was behind the door, having opened it. Both of the women had huge grins on their faces.

Kal looked at them, then back into the hallway, then back at them again, noticing that they were both still dressed. "You guys are evil!" he cried, slightly annoyed. His remark only caused both the women to burst out laughing.

"You deserved it." Faye smacked him in the face with a pillow as she walked out to see Lysander, leaning against the wall, eyes closed, hands in his pockets. "And what are you doing out here?"

Lysander snorted, then opened one of his eyes, spearing her through with a condescending look. "I thought that would be obvious. I'm waiting for you." Faye stiffened, and turned to go. "Hey." She turned back around as Lysander interrupted her.

"What do you want?"

"Where's Kenja? I'm betting she wasn't in there with you two." Lysander closed his eyes again.

"Asleep on the couch in the other room. I'll show you the way." The two walked past the bedroom, leaving Sophie and the other three guys wondering just what kind of relationship they had.

----------------------

True to Faye's word, Kenja was sound asleep on the couch. As Faye and Lysander went to get her, they said their final farewells to their friends, who had come in after them.

"Well, it was nice to reminisce, hopefully we'll be able to do it again sometime. Without a certain **someone** planting a bug on me." Faye gave Lysander her best shitface grin as he shot a death glare at her.

Kal just waved feebly, cowering behind Dylan and Eddy, fearing that Sophie might just decide to get a little revenge.

"Kenja..." Lysander prodded her gently. "Kenja..." he started to shake her gently. "Wake up, it's time to go."

"Wh--?" Kenja's yawn cut her off, and she attempted to sit up, but a piece of her shirt caught on the couch and halted her motion, stretching tightly over her chest in the process. Kal, Eddy and Dylan stared at her with far off looks in their eyes. Faye's glare promised them a fate far worse than castration, and Lysander just closed his eyes and shook his head. _Poor Sophie... I feel kind of sorry for her now._

"Nevermind Kenja, just go back to sleep." The orange haired raven had already worked out how he was going to solve the problem.

"Mmmm'ok..." The sleepy woman fell back into slumber, and it was then that Lysander executed his plan. He carefully slid his arms under her body and lifted her up gently, being careful not to wake her up.

"Wow." He grunted from the effort, managing to get her above his waist. "She's heavy."

Dylan chuckled. "Must be the white meat." The remark earned him a warp-speed slap from Faye and a disapproving glare from Lysander. "What?"

Lysander just shook his head, and Faye glared at him again. They both waved one more time and walked to the door, then walked outside, headed home.

Eddy was looking up at the ceiling with one eye closed, deep in thought. As his three house mates looked at him, they felt a shiver running down their spines. He grinned goofily, much to the relief of the others, then spoke. "I think I get it."

----------------------

His arms being occupied with the sleeping mass that was Kenja, Lysander had to use his foot to open the door to the ship that the three lived on. Faye helpfully stood off to the side, doing nothing. After the door was fully open, she brushed past him airily, drawing a glare from Lysander.

"Thanks." She said casually before disappearing into the bowels of the ship. _Sometimes she drives me insane._

----------------------

Although his progress had been impaired, he eventually made his way to Kenja's room with the aforementioned woman securely in his arms. Once again he had to open the door with his feet, not being able to move his arms.

Despite Faye's many claims to the contrary, this was the first time that he really got to look at Kenja's room since she moved in, and he had to admit that he liked what she'd done to the place.

At some point she had painted the walls a dark blue, and had moved in a dresser and a nightstand, along with her bed. All in all, it went nicely together, and the room had a cool atmosphere to it, which he found to be relaxing. The orange-haired raven walked over to the bed, and pulled back the sheets, then pulled Kenja's shoes off and tucked her in.

"Good night Kenja." The man whispered softly into her ear, and gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead. Afterwards he left the room, closing the door as quietly as he could.

----------------------

Unbeknownst to him, his female companion had been partially awake during the whole time, and had heard him whisper into her ear, and felt his kiss on her forehead.

_Awwww... _Kenja thought to herself, drifting back and forth between sleep and wakefulness. _I didn't know he was such a sweetie._

Shortly afterwards, her gentle snores filled the room.

----------------------

Lysander walked back from the room, a happy look on his face. As he reached the main room, Faye glared at him. "Have fun in there? What'd you do, give her a goodnight kiss?"

"Actually, yes." Lysander's look instantly crystallized, transforming from happy to frostily hostile in a matter of seconds. _I'm not in the mood to deal with her tonight._ "You know what, let's get a mission."

"Now? At this hour?"

"Yeah, sure, why not?" Lysander let himself laugh recklessly. "I'm sure there's a night attack mission out there somewhere."

Faye stared at him strangely "Ok... if you say so..."

"We should spend some more time together, we really spend too much time apart as it is."

Her male companion's statement caught Faye completely off guard. _Despite everything... he still wants to spend time with me?_ Both ravens sat down at one of the many computers on the ship and started looking over contracts, Lysander sitting in the chair and Faye leaning on his shoulder. Lysander found a contract and double-clicked on it. "There's a good one."

Faye nodded, then pointed at a part of the screen. "It starts in 2 hours though, we'd better get moving."

----------------------

"We've arrived at the target point, dropping your ACs now."

As the mission began, Lysander's mind was in a galaxy far, far away. As his AC hit the ground, he overboosted towards the enemies without even thinking, his Laser Rifle and Blade cutting a huge swath through the enemies. Faye could only stare as her companion cut his way through the MTs with a show of force far more aggressive than she'd ever seen him display before.

Lysander absentmindedly swung his laserblade in a wide arc, decapitating an enemy MT. _You know... _He thought to himself, killing another with a stream of blue energy from his KARASAWA. _No matter how miserable I can get sometimes..._ Another MT met its end at his hands, being skewered with his laserblade, then having its head smashed in by the barrel of the huge rifle. _No matter how much shit she puts me through... _Endgame roundhouse kicked another MT, caving in its head and killing the pilot. _No matter how depressed I become... _2 MTs fell, victims to Endgame's KARASAWA.

All through the night, Lysander thought, reflected, and killed enemy MTs. As the sun finally shined on his battered and broken AC, he'd reached a conclusion.

_There's no other life that I'd rather be living._

* * *

Author Notes: No, this isn't the end. There's still much, much more of a story to tell! Sorry for the long pause between updates, but I couldn't do this one by myself. (After all, I AM using characters that aren't mine.) Hopefully I can get part 8 up soon, but since Kal, Eddy and Dylan are the main characters in that, I wouldn't count on anything anytime soon, but I'll do the best I can to get something out.

Also, I decided that despite the reviews, or rather, the lack of. I'd keep writing anyways. Maybe once I get something else out people will click that little link on my profile and be like "Hmmm... Sands of Time looks pretty interesting... I might want to check it out." and Volia! More readers/reviews/ego boosts. Hehe.

This one is the longest chapter yet, coming out at 21 pages, that's over 4 times longer than the first!

One more thing before I end this. Would some of you readers mind telling me what you think of the AC Analysis? I did it so that if you liked the ACs of the main characters you could make them for yourself, but maybe they're detracting from the story. I'd appreciate some feedback on that.

Until then.

* * *

To the readers-

BloodyKitsune: Thanks for pointing out my mistake! I must have spaced out when writing the shield part or something. Here is the fixed version. And if you really want to encourage me, drop me an email sometime, it's in the profile. About the AC Analysis, that's a great idea, and I don't know why I didn't think of it before. Someday I'll go back and put them all at the end, but until then I'm going to keep it the way it is.


	8. Arc 2: Mysteries

"Wow..." Kal was too shocked by the strange contract to keep his reaction confined to his head. "That's a lot of moola..."

The contract had been issued by Kisaragi, one of the smaller corporations. They wanted him to check out an old, abandoned factory on the outskirts of the currently corporate held territory, right on the edge of the Silent Line. That was odd enough as it was, but even odder was the fact that it paid over 1,000,000 credits.

"Holy jesus. That's enough to pay off this dump."

"What's enough to pay off this dump?" Sophie had snuck up on the raven, and spoke right over his shoulder. Kal yelled in surprise, almost falling off his chair. Sophie started to giggle, but that was abruptly cut off as his head slammed into hers, sending them both crashing to the ground, hands to their foreheads.

"Ow..." Kal groaned, rubbing his head. "That really hurt."

"You can say that again." Sophie cradled her head in her hands, rocking back and forth gently. "Did you get a metal plate grafted onto your skull?"

"Well... not really, but I DID have this accident playing football a few year--" Sophie's hand closed around his mouth before he had a chance to continue. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to stop the Raven, as he just took her mouth off of his hand and launched into his football accident.

----------------------

About ten minutes later, Sophie snapped out of her daze, noticing that it was completely silent. Kal was sitting next to her, waiting for a response of some sort. She gladly obliged him. "Now that was long, boring, and completely unnessicary. Why'd you tell me all that?"

"Dunno." Kal shrugged. "Just felt like telling a long, boring story."

"Well. Hopefully some other Raven didn't take the contract while you were telling me your stupid little story." Sophie walked over to the computer, and noticed that the contract was still up. Before Kal had a chance to do anything, she quickly accepted the contract. "You'll be leaving tomorrow afternoon."

Kal could swear he heard a whip crack in the background. Sophie noticed his silence and turned back to him on her way out the door, and looked him up and down. "What's your problem?"

"Well..." Kal began. "I'm perfectly capable of accepting contracts for **myself** thank you very much. And second, you didn't even apologize for startling me and making me bash your head like that. Third, you accepted what's probably a suicide mission for me and expect me to go on it without a question asked or anything? **That's** my problem." He paused for a second. "Well, three actually."

"You wouldn't have taken that mission, so I took it for you. All you have to do is what you're told." Kal felt rather dominated at Sophie's response. "Is that clear?" Although it was phrased like one, her tone implied that it wasn't a question.

"Quit dominating me." Kal whined. "I'm a grown man dammit."

"Then act like one Kal. Jeez, you always act like a kid. Even Eddy's more grown up than you."

Sophie's response hit Kal like a few tons of bricks, and he sat rooted to the floor, unable to come up with a suitable counter for that. Finally, he shot back the first thing that came to him. "Quit being a bitch."

"That's all I can be. Pretty hurtful coming from a 'fat, ugly cow' huh?" Sophie laughed as she left the room, the normally pleasant sound grating on Kal like nails on a chalkboard.

----------------------

Unlike Lysander, Faye and Kenja, who preferred to work on their machines with their hands, Sophie liked to use the computer terminal's manipulative arms to work on the three ACs in her charge. Desert Rose was the AC currently in the scaffold, being armed for its coming mission. Rounds clicked into place as they entered the dual machine guns grasped in the machine's hands, and the legs were switched for another model to accommodate the heavy boxes being attached to the core's shoulders. Another arm came in from the left and attached a blade to the left arm of the unit. As the unit was being prepared, Kal walked up and looked at Sophie with puppy dog eyes.

"Why do I have to do this?" He asked in a rather whiny voice.

"Because I said so." The reply of steel left him no room to maneuver, and he just slunk into the AC, sinking down into the cockpit and sitting numbly in the seat.

"Hey Soph." Kal started to recover his backbone shortly afterwards. "Give me that two-piece mabob that you have in storage, I might be able to use it."

"What are you talking about? Oh... you mean that rifle Dylan used to use? Alright, but I don't know how much use you'll find for it." Sophie pressed in a few more buttons, and the rifle emerged from the wall, carried in two halves by some manipulative arms. "I'm attaching the two halves to your legs."

"Understood."

----------------------

As Desert Rose thudded to the ground, Kal looked around the city uneasily. "I don't like this place, it's creepy." Once, a long, long time ago, a huge war might have been fought here. Huge chunks had been blown out of the buildings, exposing the materials within to the elements. The roads running around the city had been ripped and torn, and now commuters could no longer travel by them, that is to say, if there had been any in the first place. The creepiest thing about the city, however, was just the general air of decay about it, as if its inhabitants had suddenly vanished, and no new ones came in to take their place, letting the city fall into ruin. As his AC crept through the city slowly, Kal slunk into his seat. "Why me?" he let out a quiet whine. Suddenly, a laser shot narrowly missed his head, slamming into a building to the right of him, blowing a huge chunk out of the abandoned structure. Kal looked up at his radar, to find it filled with contacts. Enemy contacts.

Kal cursed and kicked the AC into a rapid boost. Zeroing in on the first contact, he spun around to find an MT facing him. Desert Rose raised both arms and unloaded both machine guns right into the chest of the MT. The enemy unit made a clumsy attempt to dodge the attack, but four out of every five rounds hit anyways. The gray unit soon slumped to the ground, exploding in a shower of armor fragments.

As the raven looked at his radar, he noticed that another contact was just around the corner. As the AC spun around and pointed both guns ahead, he encountered the last thing he expected to see. Four gray units flanked one green one, which had what looked like a small tuning fork spinning above it. However, the gray units recovered from the unexpected sight of the AC much faster than Kal did, and four laser streams carved chunks out of his armor, the hissing fragments dropping to the street, where they promptly melted. The Desert Rose retreated as quickly as it came, and spun back around the building, occasionally peeking out to trade gunfire with the four gray MTs. He engaged himself so thoroughly in the fight that he didn't notice he was surrounded until the five units were scrap metal, and a huge ring of contacts showed in his radar.

Kal looked at the radar, swore, and got to work. As his AC strafed and circled the Gray MTs, streams of laserfire lit up the sky. Occasionally one would land a hit, but Kal would land far more hits than the MTs, and occasionally one of the units accidentally shot one of its own.

Just as he finished off the last MT, 5 new contacts showed up on his radar. The yellow AC let go of the double machine guns, the weapons dropping to the ground. It bent over and unsnapped the Segment Rifle from its legs, then snapped the two halves into a single weapon. After pulling back a bolt and watching a few empty "test rounds" eject from the weapon, Kal wrapped Desert Rose's hand around it, and boosted off towards the new contacts.

----------------------

The Raven didn't like the looks of the new contacts. They were huge, red reverse-jointed MTs. Although they lacked hands, or even arms, those were made up for by the huge racks of missiles resting on their backs. They plodded slowly forwards, like armored beetles of destruction. Kal watched silently from a hole in a building, knowing that they hadn't spotted him yet, but he knew that if he stayed there that was soon to change.

As the MTs got closer, Kal yelled and burst out of the structure, debris flying everywhere. The MTs quickly turned towards him and started shooting huge swarms of missiles at him, the warheads separating several times until a huge cluster of missiles was hot on his trail. The raven simply stared at the missiles with wide eyes, before he ducked behind a nearby building, which was blown to pieces by the huge swarm of missiles.

"Holy crap." He muttered quietly, then popped out from behind the husk of the building and started blazing away at the group of machines, who took slight to moderate damage from his rifle. A few rounds splattered the ground, missing their intended targets. One of the MTs sagged to the ground, the victim of a lucky headshot. "Score!" Kal shouted as another swarm of missiles forced him to duck behind a building.

The other four MTs plodded forwards ever so slowly, preparing another volley. Their numbers were cut by another as Kal unloaded on the lead unit with his rifle, blowing out its knees and then blasting it onto its back. The remaining 3 MTs shot another group of missiles at the Desert Rose, which simply dodged them, then zigzagged towards the red units while firing a volley of rifle shots. The lead MT took a blade slice to the head, then a half-dozen rounds through the missile rack. The second and third MT fell seconds later, victims of the powerful Segment Rifle.

----------------------

The Yellow AC's pilot grinned foolishly as he stood before the huge gates of the abandoned factory, looking much like a kid who'd stolen cookies from the cookie jar without his mother catching him. As the rain started to pour from the sky and drench everything in sight, he giggled insanely, the promise of a million credits a bit too much to stay serious over.

As the empty back magazines clattered to the ground, their purpose having run out a long time ago, a sudden explosion rocked the top of the gates. Scores of rocks cascaded down the ancient metal doors, barring them completely.

"What the hell!?" Desert Rose turned around to face a teal AC standing in the pouring rain, a grenade launcher retreating over the core's shoulder.

"AC Godhand identified." The Rose's computer spoke gently.

"If you value your life, you won't go in there." An emotionless voice came over the comm, yet the voice was full of strength.

"Humph." Kal snorted dersivley. "Who the hell do you think you are, to tell me what to do?"

"I am one who knows more about that place than you know currently, or will ever wish to know."

"Sure..." Kal rolled his eyes.

"Question me if you wish. But you will surely die if you venture in there."

"From who? You? Doubt it."

"Are you questioning my skill?" The voice seemed on the edge of irritation, yet didn't quite venture into that territory.

"No. I'm questioning your threats."

"It's not a threat. It's a warning."

"Well then, warnings are different. But nevertheless, I'm going in. I need that reward."

"Then you will fight me first. If you defeat me, you may enter." The voice from the teal AC gained in strength.

"Why would I want to fight you? We've got no business. I'm not here to battle, just to get my crew and I out of poverty."

"Money does no good to a dead man."

"Neither do words." Kal was getting annoyed by the pilot of the teal AC now. What right did he have to come here and mess up everything? Desert Rose spun around and unleashed a volley of rifle shots at the teal AC, which dodged it with surprising ease. The chaingun on the smaller AC's shoulder flipped up, and it spat a volley of hot metal at Desert Rose, which nimbly dodged the projectiles. Godhand boosted to the right as the Rose boosted up and to the left, avoiding most of the shots, save for a few scattered impacts that scorched the paint job. The yellow AC landed a distance away from the teal one, and charged towards it, rifle shots announcing its arrival. A blue colored laserblade flashed out in a wide arc, but was shattered by the bluish-white hue of Godhand's MOONLIGHT. Kal stared in shock as the grenade launcher unfolded from his enemy's shoulder. _He can use it while standing?! How the hell?!_ All further thoughts were cut off as the grenade launcher bellowed, hitting Desert Rose at point blank range in the chest. As the light yellow AC stumbled back, not having had a chance to recover, a flurry of machine gun darts slammed into its chest, shredding the armor and critically damaging the internal systems of the machine. Kal let out a hoarse shout of frustration as the Moonlight of his enemy skewered the generator, then sliced off his AC's head, rendering it completely useless.

"Pathetic. You have a long way to go before you can beat me." Through the optical cables attached to the core, Kal still got a naked-eye view of the outside world, but without the head he had no radar, no lock-on sight, or anything else for that matter. He roared in frustration as the teal AC glanced back at him one last time, then the back of its RAY core opened up and energy began to gather there. "By the way." The other pilot spoke again. "You might want to get rid of that illegal weapon mold you have. If the corporations find out you have one of those, they will stop at nothing to destroy it. And you as well." The energy flared out from the RAY core, and Omega's AC streaked away.

Kal sighed and gripped the controls to Desert Rose lovingly, despite the fact that the AC was almost completely destroyed. "Let them come..."

----------------------

_That fool. _Omega thought quietly as his AC blasted further out into the wastelands. _He's getting into a war with no winners, no losers, and no survivors._

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

AC Analysis: Prairie (coughcoughDesertcough) Rose-

Description: Fast AC that's capable of rapid-fire attacks. Lots of ammo but no backup weapon should its machine guns run out of ammo.

Tech Base: Armored Core 3: Silent Line

Head: CHD-SKYEYE

Core: CCL-01-NER

Arms: CAL-44-EAS

Legs: MLM-SPINE

Booster: CBT-01-UN8

FCS: PLS-ROA

Generator: KGP-ZS4  
Radiator: RMR-SA44

Inside: N/A

Extension: N/A

Arm Unit R: MWG-MG/1000

Arm Unit L: MWG-MGL/300

Back Unit R: KWM-AD60

Back Unit L: KWM-AD60

Optional Parts: OP-S-SCR

OP-E/SCR

OP-LFCS

OP-L/BRK

OP-L/TRN

Colors:

Uniform Color Scheme

Base; R: 200

G: 180

B: 10

Aid; R: 200

G: 160

B: 35

Optional; R: 200

G: 200

B: 60

Detail; R: 180

G: 80

B: 0

Joint; R: 200

G: 140

B: 0

Other Attributes: No, you can't build the REAL Desert Rose. There's no such thing as a Segment Rifle (But it would be pretty cool if there was), plus you can't have a machine gun and blade on your left arm at the same time. (Which doesn't really make much sense, because the machine gun is held in the hand while the blade attaches directly to the arm, but oh well, it's not my game.)

Author Notes: Despite the fact that my friend (Yes, FIAOblivion) is going to be royally pissed if he finds out that I published a part list for an AC practically identical to his precious Desert Rose, (which I'm planning on trashing a few more times), I'm not going to compromise my little AC Analysis thing, the goal of which is to let anyone who actually has the games know how to build the ACs of the main characters. Besides, life doesn't always go the way you want buddy. Suck it up and deal with it.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

* * *

Author Notes: I don't really like the way this chapter came out. (Sigh) The compromises I make to be able to use those 3. I don't like Desert Rose, it's too super-powerful. That's why I trashed it so badly (Smiles)

* * *

To the Readers-

Duo: Thanks for the encouragement there. (Smiles again) always great to look in my mailbox and see the "review alert" mail, especially since I know what it's for! Don't worry, I'm doing my best to update faster than the other authors. (Steals Kitsune's glare for the "slow updaters of doom")


	9. Arc 2: Clearing Zamda

Sorry for the length between updates! It's all explained in the author notes at the end. While I'm at it, may as well give the disclaimer.

Disclaimer: I don't own most of the stuff featured in this chapter. I do own Jormagund however. Also, I don't own Evangelion either. (If you've seen the Anime, you'll know why I said that after you read this)

* * *

Jormagund, Ares, Helzehen and Remille sat around a large table, numerous plans and charts spread out before them. Each of the four Ravens had a pile of papers in their hands that they quickly sifted through, reading and digesting the information quickly.

"I think it's wise that we devise an entrance strategy before anything else." Helzehen cleared a large portion of the maps out, leaving one large one on the table. He pointed to two different locations. "These are the front and back entrances, respectively. There are advantages and disadvantages to attacking either one, but both of them are viable options for offensive operations."

"Well, I say we should attack from the front." Ares spoke first, his voice confident as he pointed to the map and drew a circle with his finger. "It leaves us more room to maneuver in case something goes wrong. In addition, it's going to be much more difficult for the disorder units to supply reinforcements to the front entrance of the base."

"Your words have wisdom." Helzehen took out a red marker. "Are there any dissenters?" Remille and Jormagund shook their heads, and Helzehen drew a large circle with a few arrows around the front of the base, drawing the words "Attack from here" in the middle of the circle. "Now that we know where to attack from, how shall we attack?"

"I say we split up. That way we'll be able to cover more ground and kill more disorder units than we could if we stayed together." Ares spoke once again, just as confident as before.

"No. We stay together." Ares looked at the dark-green haired raven in surprise, but Jormagund plowed onwards, giving him no chance to interrupt. "There are several reasons for this. First of all, if we have 3 ACs together, we stand more of a chance against large masses of the units. Second, if we encounter an exceptionally large one..." Jormagund shuddered, remembering just how many large disorder units he encountered. "We can take it out quickly and move on."

"I agree." Remille also added her opinion, outvoting Ares by a narrow, but present margin.

"Well, I guess that settles it. We stick together in a group, and focus fire on any opposition we encounter." Helzehen jotted some things down on a notepad. "Now all we need to do is find is the best way through the installation..."

----------------------

"T minus 30 seconds to drop. Are you ready?" The pilot's voice sounded nervous, as if he were entering combat.

He was answered by four "Roger."s.

"So, do you guys remember the plan?" Helzehen was the first to speak, breaking the tension that had gradually built up during the flight.

"Yep. Got it all written down here." Remille and Ares silently groaned at the response.

"You need to write that stuff down?" Ares recovered first.

"No. But it helps." Ares, Remille and Helzehen were left shaking their heads.

"We've arrived at the combat area, dropping ACs."

----------------------

The four ACs landed on the concrete at the top entrance of Zamda base, the long-destroyed radar dishes behind them. Disorder units cluttered the top of the base, and they started shooting at the four machines as well as the transport helicopter. The helicopter barely managed to get away, but it was a very near miss.

Crush Dragon, Providence, Wraith and Scholar whipped out their guns and started blasting away at the crowd of armored bugs. A few dozen rounds and thousand AP later, there were no Disorder units anywhere near the entrance of the base.

"You guys should go inside. I'll stay out here and intercept anything that tries to get in through this entrance."

"But I thought we were going to stick together." Remille's confusion was echoed by Jormagund and Ares, and the other three ACs turned to stare at Scholar.

"Well, that was the original plan... but I forgot that my missiles are practically useless inside, and without my missiles, I'm not much of a threat." The others could practically hear the ashamed, shitface grin that Helzehen had on his face.

"Oh, fine. We'll go in and clean up the inside." Jormagund's reverse-joint AC led the charge, and the three raven's ACs got on the lift. Crush Dragon's finger pressed one of the buttons, and the three descended deeper into the bowels of Zamda.

Helzehen simply checked over his weapons and sensors to make sure they were performing at top efficiency. "Now..." He said quietly to himself, pulling out a manuscript from a small compartment. "Let's see if they try to retake the base from the liberators."

----------------------

As the elevator rumbled deeper into Emeraude's facility, Ares, Remille and Jormagund couldn't help but be slightly nervous. Despite all their planning, hunting and killing dozens of Disorder units in a place as large as Zamda didn't hold too many perks, but plenty of flaws.

Being dead or seriously injured was just the beginning of the list.

"Well..." Jormagund tried to start up a conversation. 

"Well what?" Ares snapped back, on edge.

"Well, I know the layout of this place, so I should be able to find an efficient way to clear them out."

"We already knew that Jorma..." Remille sounded exasperated. Jormagund's cough answered her.

"Sorry. Nervous." Crush Dragon's feet shuffled, like a schoolboy's.

"It's alright, I think we're all nervous." Providence nodded, confirming its pilot's nervousness.

The elevator slid to a stop, and the doors opened up ever so slowly, revealing an empty room. The only sign that it had been formerly occupied were scorch marks on the walls, floors and ceilings, which told of a great battle that had been fought here.

"Look out, I'm detecting contacts beyond the door." Jormagund's AC stepped forwards towards the first door, and pressed one of the buttons. The second door opened to reveal an armored bug with a rocket launcher on its back. It started blazing away at the three pilots as soon as the door opened up enough for the rockets to get through. It was cut down by a laser cannon blast and a stream of machine gun fire. "Nice work, but I hope you don't expect me to open all the doors." Jormagund's AC led the charge into the corridor, blasting the armored bugs with his bazooka, occasionally switching to his chaingun when the units were using weak or inaccurate weapons. Providence and Wraith backed him up with a machine gun and KARASAWA II as he inched his way down the corridor, destroying all before him.

"Door number three. There are some contacts behind that one too." Wraith quickly pressed the button and stepped to the side, allowing Providence and Crush Dragon to dispatch the disorder units with their weapons. As the armored bugs were cruelly annihilated under the weight of the KARASAWA II and Bazooka, the three machines moved into the next room, facing several new disorder units. The new ones had spindly reverse-joint legs, with a larger upper body. Fangs protruded from their mouths, and they had several cannons facing forwards, which quickly erupted into a spread of laser darts that impaled Wraith, forcing the white machine back a few steps. Crush Dragon and Providence opened up with their weapons and quickly reduced the units into ash.

"Crap." Ares frowned "I didn't realize they were down here too."

"Yeah. Those kind aren't fun to deal with." Jormagund's grim reply did little to assuage the other two's grimness. It was then that the door opened, revealing a larger disorder unit, which wielded two rocket launchers and a laser cannon. The unit started shooting at the group as soon as the door opened, and they were hard pressed to dodge the shots. The three ravens returned fire quickly, and the disorder unit was destroyed in short order.

"Well," Ares sighed. "I guess we'd better keep going."

----------------------

"Huh?" Helzehen looked up from his book as his radar suddenly beeped out a warning. "What the hell is that thing?"

Although he couldn't clearly distinguish the object, it appeared to be a huge diamond, and it was floating towards the base at a steady rate. Helzehen frowned as he quickly typed into the small laptop built into one part of Scholar's cockpit. "That's odd. It bears absolutely no similarity to any disorder units previously encountered... I'd better tell the others." Helzehen flipped on his radio, and addressed his three consorts quickly. "Jormagund, Ares, Remille. This is Helzehen. I've picked up a strange contact on my radar, and it's closing quickly."

----------------------

Having fought their way through about 3 rooms of Disorder units, Providence, Crush Dragon and Wraith were somewhat worse for wear, but they were still performing at top efficiency, despite having lost about 50 of their AP.

"Door number eight opening. Stand clear please." Providence stepped aside as Wraith's machine gun and Crush Dragon's bazooka cut the lifespan of a few disorder units short. The remaining laser-rifle-wielding units were easy meat for the combined weapons of the three ACs.

"Phew." Jormagund sighed and had his machine take a step forward. "Is it just me or are these little buggers getting harder to beat as we get deeper into the facility?"

"Yeah. They're definetly getting harder, and the worst part is that there's no sign of them letting up either." Ares replied gloomily, his AC moving towards "door number nine."

"Well, at least we're getting paid well for this." Remille's cheerful statement rubbed off on the other two, and they couldn't help but feel better.

"She does have a point there..." Providence took point as Wraith opened the next door, and the KARASAWA II and Bazooka quickly cut the waiting units to shreds. Remille helped the other two clean up the last of the units, and despite taking some damage, they were all ready to proceed into the next room.

"Jormagund, Ares, Remille. This is Helzehen. I've picked up a strange contact on my radar, and it's closing quickly." Helzehen didn't quite sound panicked, but he did sound concerned, and that was enough to cause the other three to formulate concerns of their own.

"I hope he's ok. Whatever that thing is, it sounds pretty tough."

----------------------

Helzehen stared oddly at the huge, blue, floating octahedron in front of him. _What the hell is that thing?_

"Unable to analyze." Helzehen cursed at his computer, then glared at the thing. _Well, it's time to find out what you're made of you stupid blue diamond. _Scholar's computers quickly achieved a lock on the thing, and fired. Helzehen smiled as his back-mounted vertical-launch multi missiles split into 8 different warheads above him, a total of 10 missiles screaming towards the unit.

Only to gasp, and slam his arm down on the chair as the missiles exploded harmlessly on a huge, hexagon shaped shield of an orange color. "Dammit!"

"Unknown energy reading detected." A huge green beam of energy barely missed the AC, burning a huge scorch mark into the pavement to the right.

"Holy shit!" Scholar quickly took cover behind a large building on the roof of the base, which another beam blasted into, starting to vaporize the structural material. After about twenty five seconds, the beam stopped, and Helzehen had some time to think.

_Ok. I don't know **WHAT IN THE FUCKING HELL** that thing is, but it's obviously powerful. It's obviously got some sort of auto-tracking system, and I'm obviously screwed if I can't find a way to break that stupid orange shield. Think Helzehen... think... Wait! I think I got it! If... by some unknown chance, the energy signature of my blade and its shield are the same..._ A few quick keystrokes confirmed this, and Helzehen went back to his thoughtful pause. _Then maybe I can break the shield with my blade! It's worth a shot anyhow._

Scholar broke out into a headlong dash, another huge beam scorching the pavement behind it. Helzehen let out a sigh of relief as the weapon missed him, then abruptly turned and flew up high, right into the shield. The AC quickly activated its laserblade, and although the shield tried to counter the assault, it failed and shattered into a shower of orange-white energy shards. Helzehen didn't quite make it behind a building in time, and Scholar lost its right arm to the next beam, the appendage totally incinerated under the appalling power of the weapon.

_Wow. That was too close for comfort. _Helzehen fought down a shudder. _I don't even want to imagine what would happen if that had hit my core instead... _Suddenly the situation looked a whole lot brighter. He still had his missiles and blade, and the thing didn't have its shield anymore. Scholar overboosted from behind a building, firing its missile racks at the unit for all it was worth. As the huge blue octahedron was raked viciously by the missiles, it returned fire in the form of another laser, which hit the ground near Scholar and melted its foot. The machine lost its balance and tumbled behind another building, skidding to a halt as its foot melted to the ground.

_Damn._ Helzehen noticed that the repeated attacks were costing him dearly in AP. If the battle persisted for much longer, the huge unit that was attacking him would win, and he would die. _No. This thing isn't going to kill me. I just have to think this through. There's a logical way to beat that damn thing, I've proved it so far and I can prove it again. _

Scholar limped its way over to another building, and locked on to the blue octahedron again. Luckily it had landed behind 3 buildings with a slight gap between them. As the unit boosted between buildings, it unleashed swarms of missiles upon the octahedron once again. The missiles blasted the thing, and it shuddered in midair, sudden holes appearing in its reflective blue armor. _I wish I still had my pulse rifle..._ Helzehen mourned the loss of his weapon silently, then came up with a new plan. _That thing is pretty big... if I can get inside of it somehow, it's over. _Scholar jumped up and activated its overboost function. As it zoomed towards the unit, it nearly lost its head to another laser beam. "Damn!" Helzehen yelled as the AC's vision wavered dangerously, and he almost had to switch to the optical cables on his core.

The damaged AC managed to reach its goal however, and landed in a hole in the disorder unit's shell. As he looked at the internal mechanisms of the unit, he noticed a huge red sphere right in the center of it. _That must be the thing's power source... I'd better destroy it._ Scholar's arm wound back, and it plunged the flaming purple blade directly into the sphere.

_Oh shit!_ Was all Helzehen had time to think as the disorder unit exploded with a force greater than even that of a FIN-BOO rocket. The mangled remains of Scholar slammed into the mountainside, then slid to the ground, tumbling to the bottom of the huge crater like a puppet with its strings cut.

----------------------

The other three ACs weren't affected by the catastrophic battle on the surface, but all of them were knocked on their mecha asses when the huge explosion triggered a massive quake in the facility.

"What the hell was that?" Remille cried in surprise.

"Dunno." Ares blurted out a hasty response, just as surprised himself. 

"I hope Helzehen's alright..." Her usually bright voice was tainted with worry, and Jormagund's AC stood up, then turned towards the exit.

"We'd better check that out. He might need medical attention or help." Jormagund paused, then his AC overboosted out the door, leaving grim words behind "Or both."

"C'mon. There are still more this way, I think he can handle whatever's up there by himself." Ares turned Providence towards another door, and Wraith reluctantly followed it. The machine gun and KARASAWA II quickly made short work of the few disorder units behind the next door.

----------------------

To say Jormagund was uneasy as his AC made its way to the surface was correct. The raven didn't like the feeling of unease that came from the quake, and now the elevator. It felt like something creepy was waiting for him just beyond his sight.

When the elevator reached the surface, Jormagund face fell. At some point the doors had been melted totally, and were now one solid piece of metal. He hoped that Helzehen was able to defeat, or even survive whatever had done that. The purple and black AC's foot wound back, then shot out like a spring, slamming into the metal. The door dented, but the attack had no effect otherwise. The AC kept kicking the door, and eventually slashed it open using its blade.

Jormagund's face quickly dissolved into an aghast look as he beheld the scene in front of him. Scholar was at the bottom of a huge crater, and small, scorched shards of armor were scattered everywhere. But worse was the ground. Huge scorch marks indicated that a weapon of massive power had been fired repeatedly, and the mangled remains of the entrance building confirmed that. Crush Dragon quickly slid down the slope of the huge impact and crouched beside Scholar.

"Hey... are you alive in there?" No response came from the other AC. Jormagund tried hailing the downed pilot again, but go no response a second time.

The 'savior of mars' popped open his cockpit and quickly climbed down his AC, using some handles of the VAT legs to lower himself down. He then quickly scrambled over to Scholar and climbed up the mangled remnants of the light purple AC, and used the emergency release to open up the access hatch for the cockpit. _It's still warm... that explosion must have been pretty big..._

As he peered into the cockpit, he couldn't really see anything, but he noted that it didn't smell of blood, and that was a good thing. The raven climbed deeper into it, and grabbed for where he thought Helzehen's shoulders were, accidentally sticking his hand right into the other raven's mouth. _Ugh._ Jormagund quickly pulled his hand out, then felt around for Helzehen's shoulders. After a few seconds he found them, and disregarding the "standard procedures," he quickly dragged the unconscious man from his AC, and laid him gently on the ground, checking him over for broken bones.

The damage could have been much worse. A couple of broken ribs and a broken arm would have the raven in the hospital for a few weeks, but it wasn't anything fatal. Helzehen finally proved that he was alive by groaning weakly and trying to roll over, only to be stopped by Jormagund.

"Don't move Helzehen. Just hold on until the chopper comes..." Jormagund carefully strapped Helzehen back into his mangled AC, figuring that he was safer in there than out in the open. After completing his task, he got back into his own AC and stood guard over his defeated comrade.

_I don't want to leave him out there like that. But if those two get injured while fighting that disorder unit, I'll never forgive myself._

----------------------

"Alright." Ares breathed steadily, trying to ignore his flashing AP gague. "This should be the last room. We're almost done." 

"That's a relief." Remille sighed quietly, her AC leaking sparks and smoke from a few different places. "I'm almost out of ammo, and AP too."

As the door to the room opened, a huge disorder unit could be seen in the middle of it, its six legs splayed out in a ready stance as the two huge barrels on the ends of its arms swung towards Providence and Wraith, bathed in an eerie blue glow.

"Well." Ares said quietly. "That could be a problem."

----------------------

"Jormagund. This is Ares. We've run into a large disorder unit deep inside the facility. We need your help to take it out, we've suffered extensive damage and our ammo reserves are low. By the way, is Helzehen ok?"

"Yeah, he's fine, and I'll come down as quickly as I can. Do you think you two stand a chance against it in its current state?"

"Negative. I have about 800 AP left, and Wraith only has 600. We're not going to make it alone."

"I understand, I'm coming down now."

----------------------

The purple and black AC halted in front its red and white companions.

"So, what's the trouble?" Jormagund stared at the door quietly, not wanting to open it until he had a better idea of what was behind it.

"Well, there's a disorder unit behind it."

"I surmised that much Ares. What **kind** of disorder unit?"

"Alright..." The lanky raven began. "It has six legs, it's really big, and it has two sets of cannons on its arms, a pair of bigger ones and smaller ones--"

"Enough." Jormagund cut him off. "I know what you're talking about now, I've fought one of those before."

"Do you think we stand a chance?" Remille finally spoke up, sounding slightly worried.

"Yes. But only if I distract the thing and you provide me with some support fire. The room should be big enough, so you should have enough room to use your missiles Ares."

Providence nodded, indicating that the other raven understood.

"Ok." Jormagund breathed out. "Are you guys ready?"

----------------------

The door opened, and Jormagund was greeted by two huge laser bursts, which narrowly missed his AC. Crush Dragon flew into the room, borne on the massive flame of its overboost. It quickly stopped and spun around, shooting a bazooka round at the massive unit. As the armored bug recoiled slightly, a series of eight missiles slammed into its leg, threatening to knock it over and seriously damaging the armor. The bug spun around quickly to look for another target, when a laser blast hit it in the front, scorching the armor, then a bazooka round hit it in the side.

Jormagund kept his boosters on full as the disorder unit turned back to him, thin laser beams lancing out of the bottom barrels of its arms in an attempt to skewer his AC. Machine gun rounds hailed him as he frantically dodged the attacks. Despite taking a few hits here and there, Crush Dragon managed to fight back well with its bazooka, and the other's support fire harassing the unit caused it to become confused and constantly seek for targets.

As the purple and black AC managed to get behind it, the machine was greeted by a nasty surprise. Suddenly armored hatches flipped up on the back of the thing, and two boxes popped out of the holes, unleashing a swarm of missiles at the reverse-joint AC. It quickly dodged and returned fire in earnest, smashing one of the boxes with a well-placed bazooka shot.

Unfortunately, circling the unit left its frontal weapons open to fire on Providence and Wraith, and the two ravens were hard pressed to avoid the laser blasts and clouds of machine gun fire issuing from their enemy, nevertheless, Remille managed to return fire from the shoulder-mounted rocket launcher, which she had been saving for an occasion like this, and Ares with his laser cannon, the PLUS pilot dodging and returning fire with incredible accuracy.

Despite a valiant attempt, the disorder unit was crushed by the weight of the three streams of firepower being poured on it, and soon collapsed, exploding into a could of flames and smoke. The three machines stopped in their places, all of them heavily damaged.

"I hate those things." Jormagund spoke first.

"Phew. Those are no cakewalk." Ares sighed in relief, his AC sinking into a sitting position.

"Well, at least we could actually dodge its attacks in here. It was hell fighting one of those in a cramped subway."

"Good point." Ares sighed again and Providence shifted into a standing position. "Well, that was the last one, we should be getting out of here now. I hope Helzehen is still ok."

"Yeah. I had to leave him up there all alone... I hope no other units came."

"What?!" Remille exploded. "You left him up there **all by himself**?!?!!?"

"Believe me, I wouldn't have done it if I had a choice." Jormagund's AC shook its head in a gesture of apology. "I just didn't want you guys to die as well. And the I figured that the Disorder units would have left a downed AC alone."

"Oh..." It was Remille's turn to sound apologetic. "I see."

"It's alright, believe me, I didn't like having to do it either, but it was nessicary in order to insure the safety of you two." Jormagund sighed and turned towards the exit. "We'd better get to the surface."

----------------------

Providence, Wraith and Crush Dragon all broke the surface at the same time, to be greeted by the same sight. Scholar, lying defeated and broken in the middle of the huge crater.

"Hey Helzehen. Are you awake?" Jormagund spoke as his AC moved over to its fallen comrade, then bent down and gently gathered the defeated AC into its arms. A weak groan answered him over the comm as he walked over to the edge of the base and squatted down, waiting for the planes to come. "It's alright Helzehen, we'll get you to a hospital soon."

----------------------

"How is he?"

"4 broken ribs, a broken arm, broken leg, and 2 moderate concussions." Jormagund sighed and shook his head, putting his arm around Remille's shoulder. "He's going to be out of the action for a while."

"Oh... we should tell Ares. He'd want to know."

"I'll tell him later Rem. We should let him see to his own problems first. The war for mars is just beginning, and god forbid that we're caught unprepared."

Remille simply nodded resolutley, and Jormagund gave her hand a squeeze.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

AC Analysis: Wraith-

Description: Light but powerful AC. Uses mainly energy weapons and Zio Matrix parts.

Tech Base: Armored Core 2

Head: ZHD-2000/SV

Core: ZCL-XA/2

Arms: ZAN-202/TEM

Legs: ZLN-EK1/SRRT

Booster: ZBT-GEX/3000

FCS: DOX-ELENA

Generator: HOY-B1000  
  
Radiator: RBG-CM6

Inside: N/A

Extension: BEX-BD150

Arm Unit R: ZWF-S/NIGHT (ZWG-MG/ENE)

Arm Unit L: ZLS0400/SL

Back Unit R: ZXR-S/STEALTH (ZWC-LQ/2552)

Back Unit L: ZXR-S/STEALTH (ZWR-S/60)

Optional Parts: SP-S/SCR

SP-ENE-SCR

SP-BE

SP-ENE-ACC

SP-E/SAVER

SP-VIECH

Colors:

Uniform Color Scheme

Sample Colors – Snow White

Other Attributes: Remille kneels to use her cannons, but is the mysterious ex-frightener PLUS? Guess you'll have to wait to find out. Another note – the parts in parenteses are are the parts she uses on missions. That energy sniper rifle would run out pretty fast against disorder units. Also, I think the AC is overweight, but I can't quite remember and I'm too lazy to check.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

* * *

Author Notes: Sorry again for the long pause between updates! I stayed the night at a friend's house for Haloween. Got tons of parts, and got to play some people who are actually good at Armored Core! (My other friends really suck.) And I've recived offical confirmation that I'm "Pretty good" and coming from someone who's played Armored Core for what I estimate to be about 2 or 3 years, that's pretty big praise. Anywho, enough about my little self-rant there. Phantasma fans will be happy to know that I'm planning a fic that gives Stinger a starring role! Don't know who Stinger is? Play Revolution. 


	10. Arc 2: Marked Man

Author Notes: Sorry, probably would have had this up a day or two ago, but circumstances prevented it. Oh well, just one of those lost opportunities. Enjoy.

I don't own Armored Core. I'm just borrowing it for a while. Thanks Agetec! (Insert maniacal laughter here)

_

* * *

This could be a problem. _Omega sat on Godhand's shoulder, watching the sun rise. _If Kisaragi is getting curious about that factory... Curious enough to send a raven... then things could unfold more quickly than I wanted them to. And if they unfold too quickly... there's no way I can save the people of Layered, or any other place for that matter, from the destruction that will follow._

Omega popped open the hatch to the RAY core and climbed inside, then flipped the Overboost switch to the "on" position. _I'd best get going, I've stayed here long enough._

----------------------

_This should be easy money._ Omega sat at a library computer, looking over various contracts offered by various corporations. One of them in particular interested him, it was the chance to test a new MT design by Mirage. _The Chaos 0.8? Sounds interesting, but not particularly powerful. I think I'll take this one. _Omega accepted the contract, and left to get prepared.

----------------------

"Don't hold back Raven, do your best." Omega rolled his eyes as the Mirage operator instructed him. _Just let me have a crack at that thing. I'll give you all the data you need._

The MT wasn't exactly the standard machine. Tall and gangly, it had ridiculously skinny arms and legs, and no head to speak of. It stumbled off to the left as soon as the elevator stopped and it had a chance to stabilize itself. _Looks like it has some problems with balance._

A grenade round sent the MT tumbling to the ground. As the machine tried to rise, a burst from the FINGER tore it in half, and a slash from the MOONLIGHT quartered it neatly. Godhand landed a short distance away, the SPINE legs bending over at the knees. "Easy meat." Omega snorted, smiling to himself at the awed silence of the operators.

Before he got a chance to bask in his victory, an alarm started screaming, and the lights of the facility turned red. "Raven!" One of the operators cried. "An unidentified AC has breached the facility! Find him and destroy him immediately!"

"No. Our contract expired when I took out that MT." Before the operators had a chance to respond, Omega continued. "But I'll take him out for you. He's after me anyways."

----------------------

Keljadon smiled as his AC opened up the doors to the room where his target was located. He surely wouldn't be able to escape Bigfoot's multiple grenade launchers. The raven grinned arrogantly as the doors to the testing room opened, revealing a landscape of dunes before him. In the center of the room stood a lone AC, painted teal and black. It showed slight signs of battle damage, but nothing too serious.

"Greetings." The pilot's emotionless voice rang out. "I've been waiting for you..."

----------------------

Omega watched as the lumbering heavy AC clumped into the room, its pawlike feet making imprints in the sand of the testing site. _I hope he doesn't think he can beat me with that clumsy thing._ The huge AC was decked out in high-power grenade rifles, the quadruped weapons jutting out of the AC's arms and back. With a fierce battle-cry the raven charged forward, both grenade rifles bellowing as they released a pair of fireballs at Godhand.

The teal AC's pilot laughed, and stepped his machine to the side, easily evading the poorly executed attack. His next move was to flip the grenade launcher over his shoulder and return fire with it, the high-explosive round slamming into the core of the opposite machine, denting Bigfoot's massive core. One of the dual back grenade launchers popped over the shoulders, Bigfoot using the weapon in conjunction with the left-mounted grenade rifle to launch a blistering series of attacks against Godhand. The smaller teal AC was hard pressed to avoid the attacks from the huge, blocky behemoth, but managed to dodge most of the rounds, only getting hit once in the side of the RAY core.

The A-1 Raven grinned as the weapon hit the side of his core. _So he's not totally incompetent... Let's see how he handles this._ The chaingun switched the grenade launcher as the weapon pointing over Godhand's shoulder, and Omega pulled hard on the trigger, the weapon coughing repeatedly as it spat a long stream of bullets at Bigfoot. The multiple rounds impacted one after another, the heavy AC being too slow to do much more than try to dodge them. As he distracted his enemy with the chaingun fire, Omega inched ever so closer to Keljadon, zigzagging back and forth to appear as if he were undertaking an evasive action.

Keljadon never realized his opponent's plan until it was too late. As Godhand got close enough for the killing blow, Omega took it with extreme prejudice, the MOONLIGHT flashing out in a searing arc. The extremely powerful blade sliced clean through the IKS core that made up Bigfoot's body, cutting the cockpit in half and vaporizing the pilot. Keljadon never even got a chance to scream.

_Nice try. But you're going to have to send better than that to defeat me._

----------------------

After collecting his pay from the rather stunned operators, Omega headed outside. Sometime during the fight it had started raining, and he found it refreshing to be outside without a jacket, just letting the water run down his face and his hair as he looked up at the sky. Without a further thought to the incident inside the training building, Omega began the long walk home, having made the necessary arrangements for his AC to be transported back to Global Cortex.

As he looked out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that someone seemed to be looking at him rather strangely.

----------------------

_If that guy thinks he's going to ambush me, he's in for a big surprise... _Omega calmly kept his hands in his pockets as he walked down the streets of Layered, the dark-looking man who had been following him for a few hours hot on his tail. _I can't believe that he hasn't noticed that I've noticed him._ He minded his business like any other citizen, occasionally casting glances over his shoulder to make sure the guy was still following him. _Good... follow me..._

Omega kept walking down the streets, his hands still in his pockets. After one last glance to make sure that the guy was still following him, he ducked into a nearby alleyway. _Let's get this show on the road._

"I hope you didn't think you could surprise me." The raven spoke first, his emotionless voice seeming to echo in the emptiness of the alleyway.

"Wha... you knew?" His pursuer was obviously shocked by the revelation, and Omega quickly dismissed him as a rookie assassin. _He won't be a challenge. It's time to show him why he shouldn't have accepted that contract from the controller._

"Of course I did. Didn't you see me looking at you?" Omega smiled at the other man's angry growl, and assumed that the hitman would be charging at him. _That means that I'll need to move, right... _His body tensed up, ready for action. _Now._

The raven was disappointed as he heard the audible click of a pistol's hammer sliding into place. _Typical hitman. Can't face his targets like a real man. That's too bad, I was really expecting more from him._

A shot fired. Omega didn't even make an attempt to dodge it. The bullet hit him high and to the left, shattering his shoulder and rendering his arm useless. The second bullet hit him in the side, narrowly missing any organs but leaving a good flesh wound. The third bullet hit him in the lung, and he fought down an extremely strong urge to cough as he could feel the trickle of blood filling the bottom of his lungs. As the fiery tendrils of agony enveloped his left side, he didn't move, didn't flinch. Just spoke.

"Your aim needs work. You narrowly missed my large intestine." Omega smiled through the pain, feeling delirious from the adrenalin.

"You!? You're still alive??!"

"Yes. I am. But unfortunately, the same can't be said for you ." Despite his injuries, Omega whirled around, his right hand finding the hilt of a sword that he carried inside his shirt specifically for emergencies like this. The raven spun around, whipping out the ancient weapon, which sliced his shirt in half. However, the would-be assassin suffered a much worse fate, as the end of the sword lodged itself firmly in his throat.

"Norman... Smith..." The assassin's last words came out as a disappointed gurgle.

Omega just frowned and clutched his left side gently, tidal waves of agony roaring through the injured area of his body. _I suppose I should seek treatment for these. But they won't kill me._

_Nothing will kill me._

----------------------

The program was frustrated. Or as close to frustrated as a program could be. Two assassination attempts on its target had failed, in the same day too. _The probability of him surviving two assassination attempts shouldn't have been very high! He must have improved since we last fought..._ The program briefly flashed back to those last few moments inside that huge arena...

_Memories? But I am a program now. Programs have no memories. Only a purpose. I exist for the sole purpose of protecting humanity. I intend to fulfill that task._ As the program finished its ruminations, it noticed that a certain task was complete. A transport bearing a certain cargo had arrived earlier, on the exact time it was supposed to.

_Checking ID... ID confirmed. This is excellent..._ The computer surveyed the contents of the ship with a feeling akin to greed, sampling the contents of the ship like delicious treats waiting to be devoured. _Yes... these are perfect. They will make excellent soldiers._

_The storm is just beginning for you Norman. You will be out of the equation with a minimal effort._


	11. Arc 2: Dear Friends

Author's Notes: Time for part 11. I'm going to try and squeeze some of Nexus into this, but none of the parts, judging from how I've started this on Silent Line parts.

Disclaimer: I don't own Armored Core. I'm just a poor boy from a poor family.

* * *

Trent looked up as Leigh draped herself over his shoulders. Her finger starting twirling his hair as she looked at him, then at the computer screen.

"What'cha doing?" She asked lazily, all of her fingers running through his hair now. Trent smiled, then pointed to a line of text on the screen.

"Contract. Crest wants me and two other ravens to test out their 'new model MTs.' They're probably just as weak as the originals." Trent sighed, then reached up to rub Leigh's shoulder. "But hey, it's easy money."

Leigh smiled and winked at him. "I'd have to agree with that one."

"No matter how tough they make those things, an MT is still an MT." Trent shut down the computer and stood up, then stretched and yawned. "Ho hum. This is going to be a long two days."

Leigh smiled at him, then placed her hands on his shoulders. "I think we can make time fly."

----------------------

Trent stood in the mirage briefing room, still in a daze. He wasn't sure how the past two days had gone by so quickly, but he was sure that they had, and he was also sure that he enjoyed himself. They had gone to the movies, resturants... and done all sorts of other stuff. It was thinking about the past days that kept him out of focus.

"--And you didn't hear a word I just said, did you?"

The raven shook his head, the question piercing the bubble of his fantasies. "What? Sorry, I spaced out."

The operator frowned, her hands coming to rest on her hips. "You're fighting ten of the new MTs. You'll be working with three other ravens in order to defeat the units."

"Three? But the contract said I'd only be working with two."

"We changed our minds. Three ravens might be insufficent against such a large number of MTs."

"Ten? A single raven could wipe out twenty MTs without breaking a sweat." Trent gave her his best 'what are you, stupid or something?' glare, and the woman returned it sternly.

"Maybe, but not when faced by them all simotaneously, and within a confined space as well."

The raven sighed. "I suppose you're right. Who am I working with?"

"We wanted this exercise to be between four ravens that have never met. You will meet your consorts in that room." Trent nodded, then walked over to the door, and opened it, stepping inside the room, he assumed that from the way the corridor leading into the place was so poorly lit because they didn't want him seeing who the others were.

"The lights will be turned on shortly. Please have a seat on the floor." Trent followed the order, and he could hear another do the same. "The lights will be turned on now. Please refrain from a violent reaction."

All four ravens shut their eyes as the lights were suddenly turned on. "Oh my god!" Trent cried as he covered up his eyes. "It's so bright!"

"Hey. I know I've heard your voice somewhere..." Someone said off to his right, sounding like they too had been victimized by the light.

"You sound familiar too... you both do actually..." A third person spoke. Trent slowly uncovered his eyes, and opened them little by little, squinting heavily against the harsh glare of the lights. The first thing he saw was a man of medium height with a unruly mop of brown hair.

"You're... I know you... Brad right?" The man's face instantly brightened with recognition.

"Trent! I thought I'd never see you again! Where the hell have you been?"

"Oh, around and about, nothing to brag about really."

"Trent? Brad? Are you guys who I think you are?" The third man still had his hands clamped over his eyes. "I have a feeling I know you from somewhere..." The man clad in green combat armor stumbled around, his eyes still adjusting to the lights.

_That hair looks familiar... Where have I seen it before?_ Trent thought for a moment, then recognition dawned upon him. Not wanting to crush his newly found hope before it could fly, he fired off a question at the other man. "What's your name?"

"My name? I'm Lysander."

"Yep." Trent grinned, and noticed that Brad was grinning too. "You know us. At least you should anyways. It would really be a bummer if you forgot us after all this time." The man finally uncovered his eyes, and looked at Brad and Trent. Then he started laughing.

"Trent! Brad! I missed you guys." He laughed again. "How've you been?"

"Not bad. Not bad at all." Brad replied, the grin getting wider. "But who's the fourth person we're supposed to be working with?

Faye sat in the corner, her head buried in her arms. Her foot worked its way up and down, striking the floor with audible tapping sounds. Lysander shot her an apologetic look, even though he knew she couldn't see him.

"Faye? I didn't know you took this mission."

"Yeah." She growled from underneath her arms. "I could say the same thing."

"Sorry about that." Lysander rubbed the back of his head, then walked over next to her and put his hand on her shoulder. "These guys are old friends of mine."

Faye glared at him. "You didn't have to ignore me like that."

"Oh come on, you can forgive me can't you? Just this once?"

Faye sighed and looked at him through half-closed eyes. "I guess I can let it go this time." Lysander helped her up, and looked at the other two men.

"Brad, Trent, this is Faye, we've been working together... for a few months now." Lysander stumbled briefly as Faye glared at him.

"Heheh." Brad laughed, then grinned, leaning forward to offer his hand. "I didn't know you had a girlfriend Ly-" He abruptly croaked as Faye slammed her knee into his crotch, falling to the floor and rolling around weakly, his eyes tearing up.

"She doesn't like it when people call her that." Lysander apologized with a grin, and rubbed the back of his head. "I would have warned you beforehand... but I didn't know you'd say something like that."

Trent sighed at Brad's poorly disguised advance, and Faye's violent reaction to that. "Name's Trent. Nice to meet you." He said in the politest manner he could, offering her his hand. Faye looked at him warily, took his hand slowly, then squeezed it as hard as she could. Trent was surprised by her strength, but stared her in the eye levelly, squeezing back as hard as he could himself.

Faye eventually grimaced and gave up the contest of strength, looking at Trent with grudging admiration. Trent simply smiled back.

"I trust you've all gotten aquainted?"

"Ha!" Lysander laughed loudly. "We've known each other for a long time. Trent used to be Brad's and my teacher when we were learning how to use an MT. And me and Faye go back a ways." Faye glared at him for the last comment, but said nothing.

"Understood." The four ravens could hear the annoyance in the operator's voice, although Brad was still recovering from having his crotch brutally smashed.

"Ouchie." The floored raven finally whimpered, drawing sympathetic looks from Lysander and Trent, but a glare of contempt from Faye. The two male ravens helped their friend up, and he stood unsteadily.

"The test will begin shortly. Please proceed to your ACs." The operator interrupted them again in a terse voice.

----------------------

Liberator tramped out into the arena, where Tyrant, Endgame and Gorgon were waiting for it. The brown machine stopped when it was even with the other three, forming a line abreast.

"These MTs are a bit tougher than anything you're used to. Be prepared." The operator's voice sounded yet again, and Trent grimaced, wishing that they could just start the test. A few hatches on the floor opened at the other side of the room, and the ten MTs popped out of the holes.

The "new model MTs" had a massive quadruped base, but it was there that their resemblance to an AC ended. Instead of a core, head, and arms, along with the corresponding weapons, a huge cannon rested, the wicked-looking turrets seeming like eyes that were constantly seeking out targets. Trent's comm crackled as the operator spoke, "begin."

As the test started, Liberator and Tyrant boosted straight up into the air. Endgame charged to the left, and Flamestreak strafed to the right. Trent squeezed down on the trigger for his Spread Bazooka, showering four of the MTs with heavy impact, high explosive rounds. The black machines shuddered, one of them exploding as Tyrant's grenade launcher hit it square on the cannon.

Gorgon showered one of the MTs with a burst of grenade fire, causing the unit to stagger backwards. The unit's cannons swung in line with Faye's AC, and the Mirage test model was sent skidding back a few feet as the massive barrels recoiled, spitting out two huge fireballs. The black AC couldn't dodge at the short range, and suffered the impact of two heavy grenade hits in the chest. Faye growled as the Tank AC was forced back, and turned on the MIRROR, the soothing glow of energy washing out over the metallic shield.

Endgame seemed to be faring better against the MTs. When the grenades came, the AC seemed to fade out of the line of fire, appearing elsewhere to pelt the sinister looking machines with its KARASAWA and volleys from its missile launchers. The green and black AC managed to fell one of the MTs, but was pounded backwards by multiple grenade hits shortly afterwards, its armor peeling back and falling to the ground like smoking feathers.

Liberator and Tyrant were having problems as well. The heavier middleweight biped and the heavy reverse-joint AC had managed to dodge most of the enemy fire, but having to face five of the MTs, some of the hits had gotten through, blasting chunks of armor off the cores. Liberator and Tyrant managed to keep up a good shower of Bazooka fire, although Brad had switched to his rockets a few times to save ammo for his main weapon.

"BB. I'm going to support..." Trent read the raven tag on his radar quickly, then went back to speaking. "Firecracker. Hold them off for me, alright?"

"Yeah. I'll do what I can." Brad concentrated even more on the offensive, dropping down from the platform he had landed on to slash at the MTs with his laserblade. Although the manuver had left him more vulnerable-his AC had already taken some hits-he seemed to be doing more damage to the MTs than before, and one of the units fell to the ground, its left front leg severed.

Gorgon was in trouble. Although the tank AC had plenty of armor to withstand the grenades, the repeated pounding took its toll, and Faye couldn't seem to concentrate enough to fight back, the constant grenade impacts stunning even the heavy tank AC. The black tank AC was already showing some scars, the black paint job burned off where the exploding grenades had scorched the unit. As one of the cannons swung towards her, Faye braced for another impact, which never came.

The redhead opened her eyes slowly to see Liberator standing in front of Flamestreak, its laserblade plunged deep into the center of the MT. The black quadrped exploded with a thundercrack and shower of armor shards as the brown AC boosted away, leaving her to deal with the second MT. _Must be one of those guys. _Faye thought angrily, turning her focus to the MT.

As the first MT exploded from the KARASAWA round hitting it in the core, Lysander looked around for more targets. He settled for the other MT that had been attacking him, and launched a furious blitz from his laser rifle. As Mirage's test model stumbled backwards under the ferocity of the assault, Endgame's legs kicked it high into the air, and it came down with a vertical stabbing attack, impaling the MT upon its laserblade. As the unit went up in flames, its partially-loaded grenade rounds exploded, throwing Endgame backwards. Lysander grimaced as the AC slammed into one of the poles scattered around the arena and fell forward onto its face, more of its armor flaking away as it hit the ground. As he wrestled the AC back to its feet, he noticed that his AP was hovering around 25. _Damn. I can't believe that two of them caused this much damage._

Trent skidded to a halt in front of the downed MT. His MOONLIGHT sliced the unit in half, and the generator overloaded from having nowhere to store its energy. The machine exploded with a tremendous thunderclap, which Trent ignored as he looked around for more targets. Liberator's boosters ignited as it skidded off towards its next target, an MT that had been harrassing BB throughout the whole test. His back-mounted chaingun spat out a stream of hot metal, pitting the legs of the test unit with scars. As the heavy machine swung its cannons around to meet the incoming threat, Trent sliced one of the barrels off with the MOONLIGHT. The MT staggered for a moment, the loss of one of its cannons throwing the AI off. Trent never gave it a chance to recover as he pounded a moonlight wave into the center of the machine, smashing its generator and radiator. The 6th MT exploded violently.

Tyrant, despite its wounds, was attacking another MT viciously. The AC circled the MT faster than its cannons could rotate, and started slicing at its unprotected side whenever the cannons were facing the other way. The results of his attacks showed, slices in the armor appearing all over the MT. _Time to finish this._ BB thought to himself as Tyrant brought its spread bazooka up, and annihilated the MT's center with a point-blank bazooka blast.

Faye swore as the double grenades hit Gorgon again, the tank AC being forced back a few paces. Fortunatley, the pounding had lessened ever since the first MT was destroyed, and Faye had been biding her time in order to launch a counterattack. Gorgon took the time that the MT used to reload its weaponry and flipped its grenade launcher over its shoulder, unloading a high-explosive fireball right into the MT's cannons. The back grenade launcher smashed the MT aside, and it slammed into the back wall, exploding just like its comrades.

The four ACs looked at the last two MTs, and the units seemed to balk under the stares of the four Ravens, as if they knew what kind of fate awaited them. However, the unthinking machines refused to go down without a fight. Liberator and Tyrant finished one off with a shower of spread bazooka fire, while the other went down to the combined might of Gorgon's grenade rifle and Endgame's KARASAWA.

"Nice work Ravens. The data we collected was accurate."

"They can go shove their data." Faye snarled viciously, Gorgon spinning around and stalking off.

Lysander sighed over the comm. "She's been like that ever since Flamestreak was totalled, sorry she wasn't in a better mood."

"Flamestreak?" It seemed Brad had recovered from getting kneed in the balls, and was talking normally again.

"Yeah. That was her old AC, a few months back it got damaged so badly that it would have been less expensive to buy a new one."

"I see." Brad replied.

"Yeah, it really sucks sometimes, but there's really nothing I can do, so I'll just work around it the best I can."

Trent chuckled at Lysander's comment. "I see you remember some of the stuff I taught you at least."

"Yeah." Lysander sighed again. "Hey, want to go get a drink or something? We should catch up, we havent seen each other in years."

"Sure." Brad and Trent both agreed at the same time, and the three ACs headed off in the same direction as Gorgon, all of the ravens looking forwards to learning what their friends had been doing.

* * *

Author Notes: Could this be another cliffhanger? Perhaps. But don't worry, I won't keep you waiting 5 chapters like last time!

* * *

To the Readers:

BloodyKitsune: Perhaps... perhaps... everything will be revealed later... just hold on to your restaints.

Duo: Heh, thanks again for the good review. You're right, the huge disorder unit that Helzehen fought is Ramiel from Evangelion. Same attacks, same everything. I just had to weaken him a bit for the purposes of this story. Scholar is no Eva unit 01, plus, there was nobody else there to back him up.

Isao: Wow, that makes me feel warm and fuzzy. It's great to know that I'm inspiring people, but what am I doing writing this when I could be reading and reviewing your story? (Just noticed that it was up) Time to R&R!


	12. Arc 2: What Friends Are For

"And so," Brad finished. "That was how Omega got the best of me, despite everything I threw at him."

"In a literal sense too." Trent chuckled, setting down his beer on the table.

"Oh shut up." Brad glared at him out of half-closed eyes. "I'd like to see you do better against the number-one Raven."

"Dude." Lysander chipped in. "You're number five, you should have... ok nevermind, you did trash him pretty good, but still, there was probably something wrong with your style."

"Shut up..." Brad growled, leaning closer to Lysander.

"Ok ok, I'll leave it alone!" Lysander fended him off with a grin. "Damn man, you sure are touchy about losing, lighten up!"

"Whatever..." Brad sulked, going back to his beer. The other two men laughed, getting some stares from the others in the bar.

"This isn't a bad place Lysander. Where'd you hear about it?" Trent looked around the pseudo-ornate bar. All the wood was a dark brown, and a fair amount was exposed, giving the bar an olden look, from sometime in 2000. At the hour, however, it was practically deserted, only a few patrons moving about.

Lysander grinned. "I didn't. I just happened to see it on the way here for the mission."

"Humph. Well, you did a good job just picking one out randomly." Brad grumbled, causing the other two to laugh again.

"Hey Lysander, you never told us how you met that other raven, Firecracker, I think her alias was." Trent took another swig of his beer, and looked at Lysander, waiting for a response.

"Aw man... Do I have to tell you guys?" Lysander complained jokingly. "I swear, that's becoming the most popular story of mine."

"Yeah." Brad chipped in, sounding more interested, and less irritated. "You have to tell us. Or else we're going to kick your ass."

"Oh fine... Alright... where to begin..." As Lysander started to tell his story, the other two listened intently. After about ten minutes of talking, with occasional pauses to take a drink, the raven had finished his story, leaving his companions in various states of awe.

"Damn man, you're one lucky bastard." Brad breathed quietly.

"I suppose. Faye likes to dump molten boulders down the back of my shirt, and that gets annoying after a while, but I put up with it. After all, I'm the one who invited them to live with me."

"Polite as always I see." Trent commented, finishing his beer with a sigh. "You're a nice guy Lysander, but don't let it go too far." He got up and walked out of the bar after slapping some money down on the counter, leaving the said raven with a confused look on his face.

_Go too far? What does he mean by that?_ The orange-haired raven thought quietly as the door slammed behind his friend.

"Humph." Brad snorted from next to him. "That was cryptic."

"Yeah... tell me about it." Lysander ran his hand through his hair and sighed. "At least you're not the one who has to figure it out."

"That's very true. But what kind of friend would I be if I didn't help you figure it out?"

Lysander only blinked in reply. "I hope that was a rhetorical question, because I can't think of an answer to that which would sound right. Let's just say that you're still my friend, alright?"

Brad shrugged. "Works for me."

"Well." Lysander stood up and put some money down on the counter. "I guess I'd better get going now."

"Wait. Let me come with you." Brad quickly finished his beer, and put some money on the counter as well.

"Uh... Brad, the days that we used to stay the night at each other's houses are over. We're men now, people don't usually do that unless they live far away from each other."

"Oh c'mon Sander... It's so lonely where I live, it'd be nice to actually have people around for a change."

Lysander furrowed his brow and sighed. "Well, I suppose it couldn't hurt this once. But Faye's not going to like this very much..."

Brad's grin softened Lysander's heart and strengthened his resolve. "Thanks man. You won't regret this, I swear."

----------------------

The two ravens walked up to the ship where Lysander made his home. The said raven took a card out of the pocket on his coat and swiped it casually in the slot near the door, which made a beeping noise and opened slowly.

"Welcome to my humble abode. Well, it's a ship really, but I still live here." Lysander was the first to step over the threshold, and walked inside the ship. He paused and looked back over his shoulders. "C'mon, there aren't traps waiting to fry you or anything. And you don't have to take your shoes off either, just leave 'em on until you get to the room you'll be sleeping in."

Brad followed after Lysander, quietly looking around at everything inside the ship. Although there wasn't much to see on the walls of the dull gray hallways, he still found the layout to be interesting. As they rounded a corner, Lysander's hand quickly went up.

"Stop." He commanded quietly. "There's someone ahead of us."

Brad stopped in his tracks as Lysander peeked around the corner ahead of them, and came back with a strained look on his face.

"OK." He breathed. "It's Faye. Just act like the world is ours. Don't get nervous." Lysander emerged from the corner first, walking like he didn't have a care in the world, and Brad followed suit, trying to look as calm and collected.

"Sander!" The same voice from the female raven who had been participating in the test rang out ahead of them. "Where the hell were you!?"

"I was out with some friends, that's all."

"Oh. Well, you should have told us next time, Kenja got kind of depressed waiting for you, she fell asleep earlier though." Faye smiled evilly. "That means I have you all to myself tonight." She advanced with the evil smile pasted firmly upon her face, wrapping her arms around Lysander's waist.

"Uh... Faye? We're not exactly alone." Lysander replied nervously, trying to gesture behind him despite the fact that her arms had pinned his arms against his side.

"Oh really? Who else is there?" She replied smoothly, her head moving up towards his as their lips got closer and closer.

"Um... Faye... I like you too and all that, but now's really not the time!" Lysander blurted quickly, starting to panic.

"Geh. Fine." Faye snorted bad-temperedly, pulling away from him. "Who's the other person?"

"Oh, it's just Brad. You guys met in the test." Faye looked over Lysander's shoulder to find Brad standing there with an amused look on his face.

"Well, It's nice to see you again." Brad said lightly, but they could tell he was trying to keep from laughing.

"Humph. Nice to see you again too." Faye said airily, then spun on her heel and stalked away like an offended cat.

"She's probably not in a very good mood. That usually happens whenever I manage to deflect an attempt to seduce me." Lysander explained, causing Brad to nod knowingly. "To the guest room!" He continued. "Nothing's going to be happening around here for a while, so it'd probably be better to get to bed."

Brad sighed. "Alright, lead the way." He followed his orange-headed friend as the other raven lead the way to the guest room, waving his arm as he gestured Brad inside.

"And this, is where you'll sleep tonight." With that, he turned on the lights, revealing a fairly spartan room. A bed sat in the center, and there was a bare wooden desk with a flimsy chair, but other than the carpet on the floor, there was nothing else in the room except for the lights. "Sorry it's kind of bare. But we don't usually have guests here."

"Eh. It's fine. I didn't exactly expect to stay here myself. It was a spur of the moment thing, and I thought you'd refuse."

"You should know me better than that Brad. But I suppose that's my fault for dropping out of contact with you. Well, you can't change the past. G'night, I'll see you in the morning. Oh yeah, there's something you can wear to sleep in the drawers to the desk. I was too lazy to move a dresser in here." Lysander coughed before he stepped out of the room, closing the door after him.

_Well, nothing else to do now. _Brad thought as he changed into the nightwear in the drawer and got into the bed, pulling the covers up to his shoulders and falling asleep.

----------------------

Needles of light stabbing into his eyes woke Brad up. He sat up with a groan and stretched groggily, groaning again. "Morning already?" He asked himself. "It feels like it's only been an hour." The raven hopped off the bed and changed back into his normal clothes, opening up the door to his room and starting to wander around the ship, wondering where everyone else was.

About five minutes later he wandered into the cafeteria, to be greeted by the sight of Lysander and another woman eating some bread covered with a lemon-yellow goo.

"Welcome to the cafeteria. Feel free to have some food, but eat at your own risk." Lysander mumbled, a look of intense disgust on his face. The woman sitting across from him gave him a sympathetic look.

"What does it taste like?"

"Lemons, with ground coffee, and some butter thrown in for good measure." The woman replied, closing her eyes and sighing before taking another bite.

"Sounds interesting." Brad replied, getting a slice for himself and sitting down.

"Oh, Brad, this is Kenja. Kenja, this is Brad."

"Nice to meet you." Kenja replied distractedly, still bothered by the taste of the food.

"Nice to meet you too." Brad took a bite of the slice of bread with the goo, and almost vomited in surprise as the horrible taste forced its way into his mouth. "How can you people eat this stuff?" He gagged.

"You get used to it, that's how you eat it." Lysander replied, swallowing the last bite of toast without chewing. "It doesn't taste so bad when it's all you've had to eat for the past few weeks."

"Why do you buy it? Can't you afford decent food?"

"Not if we want to keep Endgame and Gorgon in working order. Also, we're trying to save some money so Flamestreak can be rebuilt."

"I see. Need some help with that?"

"Well, it would be nice if we could do it soon, but there's no way we're going to be able to get that much money that quickly."

Brad chuckled. "You're wrong Lysander. There is a way to get that much money that quickly."

Lysander's eyebrow rose considerably. "And just how quickly would that be?"

Brad grinned. "Now."

Lysander and Kenja looked at each other, then burst out laughing. Lysander was the first to recover. "You're shitting me, right?"

"Not at all." Brad shook his head. "Being the number four raven means that I have some cash on hand. Which I can give you. It's not like I have a better use for it."

Lysander and Kenja looked at each other. "Score!" They both yelled, and gave each other a high-five.

"Well, that's certainly welcome news." Lysander grinned, then shook his head. "And to think we've been saving up 5 months for that thing too."

"I just need to make a few account transfers... but it should be done in about an hour. Got a computer?"

"Yeah. There's one upstairs." Kenja replied.

"Excellent. May I use it?"

"Go ahead." Lysander tossed in. "I'll show you the way." He tossed his unfinished food into the garbage and got up, leading Brad to the room.

"So... this is the computer room?" Brad looked around the second room, which was just as Spartan as the guest room. The only remarkable feature was the desk, and the computer, which looked like the latest model. The desk was just a plain wooden one, and sat forlornly in the middle of the room.

"Yeah. This would be it." Lysander answered from behind him. "Feel free to use it, I'll be downstairs, I'm still hungry. Oh." He turned around and wrote something out on a piece of paper from the notepad on the desk. "Here's my account information. You'll need it."

"Got it." Brad sat down and turned the computer on after a few minutes of looking for the power switch. _I wish he at least told me how to turn the damn thing on... now let's see what they got on this thing... Hmmmm... Internet explorer 102.5 huh? Dated, but still good. _Brad opened up a few windows and started typing. _Now to make a few charitable donations..._

----------------------

Lysander walked up to the computer room after Brad called him. "Yeah man, what's going on? Did you do the-- HOLY SHIT!" Lysander's eyes bugged out when he saw his new account balance. "Wow! With that money we can repair Flamestreak for sure!"

"Indeed, and maybe you can get some other stuff for your place too, it's kind of bare."

"Yeah, we could sure use some extra carpeting. That floor can get really cold in the winter." Lysander admitted. "But seriously, is there a catch for this or something? I mean, I know you're my friend and all, but friends don't usually give other friends over 2 million credits unless they want something in return."

"Well... there is something I'd like..." Brad began tenativley. "I'd like it if I could move in with you guys."

"I suppose that could be arranged. But I'm not going to have an easy time of it. Kenja won't mind, but about Faye? She's not going to like it very much."

"I figured. But could you let me? It's really lonely at my house."

"Yeah, sure. It'd be rude not to repay you somehow anyways. Guess I'd better go break the news to them." Lysander walked off downstairs, leaving Brad to wait, the other man being understandably nervous. A few loud shouts and a crash from a distance didn't help him get settled. Lysander came back about 10 minutes later, looking somewhat worse for the wear. Several large bruises had appeared on his face, and there were several scratches on his arms.

"Well, that settles it, you're moving in as soon as possible."

"Uhhhh... Lysander.... you didn't have to go through all that trouble for me."

"Nah, but I did anyways. After all, what are friends for?"

* * *

Notes: Sorry for the long time between updating. Had major writer's block, so I decided to take a break from writing. But I'm back! And hopefully now I'll be able to update once a week at least. I know exactly where I'm going with this. Getting there is the only hard part. We all drop the ball sometimes, but for me it's time to get it rolling once again. And yes, GMA 4 will be coming sometime in the future.

* * *

To the Reader:

Duo: I don't think I'm going to put anything else from Evangelion in here. But I AM going to plan/write an AC/Eva crossover. Just gotta get some ideas down. I've already got something going, but it might be a while before you see any results.

Anyone Else: Sorry, forgot who else reviewed between ch. 11 and this one. Don't worry, I'll make sure to take your names down this time! >>


	13. Arc 2: Preparations

_Faye's going to kill me if she finds out that I bought all this stuff, but it's worth it._ Lysander looked over his purchases and grinned like a little boy who'd successfully gotten away with some of the contents of the cookie jar. _Grenade Launcher, Plasma Rifle, Moonlight, fully optimized INTENSIFY... yes, it's just perfect. Now I just need to do some reconfiguring--_

"Lysander? Are you done yet?" Faye's impatient voice came from the other side of the door. "I really have to go, how long can it take?!"

_Shit! Alright... stay calm, stay calm. _Lysander quietly folded up the laptop and snuck it in behind the toilet. _I hope it doesn't get dirty here._ "Alright Faye, I'm coming! Well, leaving actually, but you get my point." Faye almost knocked him aside in her rush to get into the bathroom. The orange-haired raven just sighed and closed the door quietly.

_Man. She's been everywhere, I can hardly get a moment to myself now._ Lysander went back to plotting out his dream AC in his head. _Yes... Grenade Launcher... Plasma Rifle... MOONLIGHT... It's going to be perfect for the arena, which I really need to advance my standings in anyways. _Although Lysander never thought that 60 was a bad rank, considering that there were over 300 ravens in the arena, he knew that he could do better, and constantly strove to reach the top. However, despite the recent acquisition of a KARASAWA, Some of the tougher arena opponents still impeded his progress. _I wonder... Oh yeah, what am I thinking? He lives here now._ _But I'd better get that computer back first, I don't want her finding out about my recent activities._

As Faye came out of the bathroom, she gave Lysander a hug, then retreated down the hall, without any of her usual attitude. _I swear, that woman is the most unpredictable person I know. Alright, time for operation PC recovery. _Lysander snuck into the bathroom and grabbed the laptop, tucking it into the back of his shirt and heading back to his room.

_Lalala... _His chain of thoughts was harshly interrupted as he collided with Kenja, knocking them both to the ground. Gritting his teeth against the pain, Lysander scrambled to his feet and offered her his hand, which she took gladly, and he pulled her back up again.

"Sorry. I really need to watch were I'm going." Lysander grinned and rubbed the back of his head.

"It's alright, I've fallen harder before." Kenja rubbed him gently on the shoulder as she walked off towards her previous destination. The other raven smiled gently and continued on, being careful for any signs of Faye. _Time to hide this thing under my mattress, and I'm set._ After reaching his room, Lysander pulled the sheet off his mattress and carefully opened the slit in it, sliding the computer underneath it and pulling the flap shut. He then tucked the sheets back into the corners, and walked into the cafeteria to get something to eat.

As he held the toast underneath the spigot, a gout of green gel spouted onto his bread. _Hmmm... I wonder what flavor this is._ A quick check confirmed what he was about to eat. _Mmmmmmm... Pickled bread. I wonder how good it'll go with regular bread. Maybe it'll actually be good for a change. _Lysander took a bite of the mixture, and quickly revised his opinion. _Nevermind. That's just as bad as always._

While he was eating the horrible mixture, Brad came into the room, and looked at his face. Understanding quickly dawned on him.

"Horrible goo today?"

"Yeah. Pickled Bread."

"Mmmmmm... sounds tasty." Brad mustered his best sarcastic tone.

"It is. The pickled part gives the bread a tangy flavor or whatever. But it's not good."

"Well, thanks for the warning. I'd like to try some anyways though." Brad put a small dab of the goo onto the end of his bread, and took an experimental bite. "Yeah. You're right. It's bad."

"Told you."

"Oh well. You only live once, how many other chances am I going to get to try pickled-bread flavored goo?"

"Next week? There are about seven other cans of it."

"Sounds fun."

"Not really, but you get used to it after a while." Lysander threw a small paper plate into the garbage, and left the room, leaving Brad to finish the rest of his plain toast.

----------------------

As soon as Lysander was a suitable distance from the cafeteria, Faye struck. Sneaking out from the hallway, the first thing that Lysander felt was a tackle which failed to take him down, then a pair of arms wrapping around his waist and a cheek pressing into his upper back.

"Faye?" He almost signed, but held it in at the last minute, deciding to keep his feelings to himself this time.

"Hey. How're you doing?"

"Err... Just fine. You saw me a few minutes ago."

"Yeah, but I was just checking on you. You never know what can happen."

"No, you don't, but the chances of 'something' happening to me within the space of five minutes is rather unlikely." By the way Faye sighed, Lysander could tell that he'd just annoyed her. "Well, I didn't mean it in a bad way. But it's not like I'd trip over a table and knock over a few stools with my body or something."

A series of crashes and a bellow of pain from the cafeteria seemed to vindicate his statement. "See? I told you that wouldn't happen to me."

Faye couldn't help but giggle. "Silly."

Lysander looked over his shoulder and frowned. "I'd better see if Brad is Ok. That shout didn't sound too happy."

"Ah, don't worry about him. He can take care of himself." Faye pressed her arm into Lysander's back, firmly guiding him away from the cafeteria. Lysander tried to resist, but decided that discretion was the better part of the valor and gave up. _I hope he's ok, or that Kenja comes in. _After a few more minutes of thought, Lysander's face darkened. _I'm the master of my own fate. Why the hell am I letting her guide me like this?_ With an abrupt motion, he broke away from Faye, and ignoring her noise of protest, walked rapidly down the hall, headed for the cafeteria again.

----------------------

Brad laid on the floor in a oddly-shaped heap. His leg was bent at an angle, indicating a break. His face was milk-white, and his mouth opened and closed slowly and soundlessly, like that of a fish. Lysander blinked once at the sight of his friend disabled on the floor, then quickly sprung into action.

Like a wildcat leaping at his prey, he was at Brad's side in an instant, checking over the leg to find the location and magnitude of the break. In a moment, he had assessed the situation and reached a conclusion. _Ouch. That had to hurt. Alright... there's only one way to deal with this._

About 5 minutes later, Kenja had arrived. Lysander found himself extremely grateful for the ship's paging system. They both knelt over Brad, Lysander near his legs and Kenja near his shoulders.

"Alright." Lysander began. "Brad, this is going to hurt like hell, but we need to do it, alright?" After he spoke, Lysander counted to three, then both he and Kenja picked Brad up, the other man swinging between them like a hammock in a gentle breeze. Brad's only reaction was to release a pained squeak. "Ok. Let's get him to the jeep."

Brad fainted.

----------------------

"I swear, those doctors take too long. And they're going to gouge the hell out of us when they're done with him."Lysander mumbled darkly, leaning against the wall.

"Come on Sander. Not all doctors are pieces of shit." Kenja replied, looking up at him from a chair.

"Yeah, well, I have some bad memories from doctors."

"Care to talk about it?"

"Not really. It's a personal matter." Lysander scratched his wrist briefly. Kenja looked at him strangely, but shrugged and returned to her reading.

A doctor came out. "Mr... Kiljorn?"

"Yeah? I'm right here." Lysander almost added "you scumbag" to the end of his sentence, but managed to avoid making a serious slip of tongue. "What do you want you-- er—doctor?"

"Well, your friend is fine." The doctor began. "However, he did have a serious break on his left--"

"Skip the medical jargon. Just gimme the bill." The orange haired raven cast an ominous glance at the doctor, and he started stammering and fiddling with his papers.

"Well...er...you see..."

"Just give me the bill. God damn, how hard can it be?"

"Err..." The doctor started to sweat.

"... Screw you. Give me those." Lysander snatched the doctor's papers right out of his hands and started leafing through them.

"Hey!" The doctor protested feebly. "You can't do that!"

Lysander almost snarled at him, but settled for a death glare instead. "Watch me." After the first few pages, he abruptly stopped. "What the fuck? What the hell are these things?" The raven turned the folder upside down, and a few pornographic pictures drifted slowly to the ground. Kenja, Lysander and the Doctor all froze for an instant.

The blue-haired beauty recovered first. With a mighty slap she sent the doctor reeling, while Lysander quickly gathered up the pictures, stuffing them in his pocket.

"Tsk tsk tsk. I always disliked doctors, but I must say, this is the first time I've ever seen a pervert-doctor. If you molested Brad, I'm going to sue you for so much, even filing for bankruptcy won't save you." Lysander's voice was rife with barely-concealed venom, and the doctor turned the color of paper. "Oh..." Lysander continued, enjoying making the medical man squirm. "Would it help if you knew that both myself, and that man you just treated were ravens?" The doctor turned even whiter, Kenja's furious glare not helping him regain his composure. Lysander looked away suddenly, appearing to no longer be interested. With a grunt, he handed Kenja a stack of papers while he turned through the rest of them. "There. Found the bill. Now to pay it, and request a change in physicians. Damn perverts... sheesh."

----------------------

"Are you sure it's a good idea to leave him there?"

"He'll be fine Kenja, unless they drugged him up, which is unlikely. Don't worry about Brad, he can take care of himself. I just hope they'll actually change the physician."

"You sure raked that guy over the plasma, what's your problem with Doctors anyways?"

"Well, I haven't liked them ever since I was fifteen. Like I said, it's a rather personal issue." Lysander glanced at his wrist again, and his hand moved to scratch it, but went back to the wheel of the Jeep instead, and he stepped on the accelerator harder, the engine of the vehicle roaring as it went even faster.

"If it's bothering you, please tell me about it."

"Well... I suppose I could tell you. But don't tell Faye about it alright? She'll pass me off as a freak or something if she knew. And it's probably better if Brad doesn't know about it either."

Kenja nodded once, but had to suppress the urge to sigh or roll her eyes.

"Alright. Let me tell you the saddest tale to ever visit the face of the earth." Lysander paused for a moment. "Well, not really. Forgive my sad attempt at humor there. Anyways... once upon a time, I got really mad... and I did something to myself that was widely seen as a suicide attempt, but it really wasn't. I'm not really too keen on giving out more details than that. That should tell you enough."

"Yeah. It does." Kenja looked at Lysander for a moment. "Does it have anything to do with your wrist?"

She didn't see the pained look cross his face. "Yeah. It does. How did you know?"

"Well, you scratched it twice when you mentioned something to that effect."

"Dammit. I can't help it. It feels itchy sometimes, and I start thinking the only way to scratch the itch is to cut it open again." He must have seen Kenja's alarmed glance, because he continued. "No, no no. I'm not going to actually do it. I just feel like it sometimes. Nothing to be worried about."

Kenja sighed. "Well, I should hope you won't."

Lysander's only reply was to step on the gas harder.

----------------------

_This is interesting. I wonder what Kisaragi wants this time? Hopefully they're not going to ask me to test a new weapon, then PAY me with the weapon. Sheesh. Especially after they promised me all that money too. Damn spoilsports._

Lysander read the email quickly and quietly, his eyebrows moving higher and higher on his forehead as he got further down the letter.

_Interesting. They want me to test a new AC. At least this time they had the dignity to say that they don't know what they'll be paying me with yet. Hopefully it'll be one of those prototype model cores I heard they're working on. The RAKAN looks especially tempting. _

The raven looked around quietly, then took the mission. _Looks like Endgame X will get a test run earlier than I expected._

----------------------

"The test will begin shortly. Your target will be the AC we deploy."

Lysander sighed and tightened his grip on Endgame X's controls. _It's time to kick this thing's ass. _He watched quietly as the AC peeked through a hatch on the bottom of the arena.

Interesting was the first thing that came to his mind. The machine was painted in a swirl of white and black. Its arms split into three different prongs, and a circular piece of metal connected them together. Heavy reverse joint legs, a antenna-like head, and a core that looked like a few blobs of metal stuck together rounded out the machine, and created a weird look that left Lysander wondering what the designers were trying to make when they thought it up.

"Begin now."

The first move Lysander made was to squeeze off a shot from his plasma rifle. The weapon scored a hit directly on the enemy AC, blasting a crater in the center of the chest. The enemy machine crouched down and fired up its boosters, speeding left on twin flames of blood red. Endgame X took a step back and aimed its plasma rifle at it again, waiting for the right moment to strike. It came a few seconds later, and the weapon scored another hit, gouging a hole in the flank of the black and white AC.

After it recovered from the plasma rifle hit, the enemy machine struck back. It pointed its arms straight at Endgame X. The prongs on the end started spinning rapidly, then released a shower of green fluid, spraying Endgame X in a fine green mist. Lysander shouted a curse and hit the overboost, sending his AC catapulting out the cloud of corrosive mist, which had eaten away a handful of his AP.

"That's a new one. I've never seen a weapon like that before." Lysander muttered to himself as the AC kept spraying more green liquid at him, and he was hard pressed to avoid the mist of droplets that kept eating away his AP one point at a time. Endgame X took a short booster-hop backwards, and switched over to its grenade launcher, the massive weapon unfolding over its shoulder as it took aim and fired. Although the enemy AC tried to dodge the attack at the last minute, it was struck in the side of the chest, another crater joining the one in the center. Suddenly, the green acid shower stopped, only to be replaced by a shower of rockets. Five of them hit Endgame X in various locations on its body, spraying it with burning napalm.

Lysander was too shocked to react. _What the hell?!? Triple Napalm Rockets?!? _In a sheer panic, he boosted his AC back, trying to get a bearing on his enemy. Just when he found it again, the black and white AC sent out another spray of rockets, all of them missing their intended target. _This thing is full of annoying surprises. It's time to finish it off. Now._

Endgame X landed in a crouch a few meters away. Its back unfolded like a massive flower blossoming, and four petals of energy flared to life as it screamed towards its enemy. The other AC tried to turn around to face the incoming threat, but it didn't make it in time. The MOONLIGHT attached to Endgame X's left arm shined bright in the dully-lit arena, and sliced the enemy AC's core in half. It exploded in a kaleidoscope of soothing reds and yellows. Never mind the shrapnel that flew everywhere.

Lysander leaned back in his chair and heaved a sigh of relief. _Victory is mine._

----------------------

"And that's how the mission went."

"Why would you do something like that Sander? It's almost 3 in the morning."

"Bored." Silence greeted Lysander's reply.

"So..." Faye began. "You did all that just because you were bored?"

"Yeah, basically."

Faye stared at him for a few seconds, then shook her head and sighed. "Sometimes I can't believe you Lysander."

"Feeling's mutual. But you know, there's something that I've been wondering about."

"What would that be?"

"There's been quite a bit of testing going on lately. You'd think that the corporations are preparing to go to war or something."

Faye didn't say anything, but she looked unusually thoughtful. "Maybe..." she began. "Maybe they are."

* * *

No comments here, other than to say that I fell behind the schedule I set for myself, which really ticked me off. Oh well, here you go, chapter 13. Hopefully it'll be smooth sailing from here on out. Lysander gave me some ideas. Sorry for the delay (') 


End file.
